


Oh, the truth shall set you free

by Amanita_Cynth



Series: AroWriMo 2021 [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Aromantic, Background Relationships, Chronic Pain, Cultural Differences, Culture Shock, Explicit Language, Fantasy Prosthetics, Found Family, Gen, Magic-Users, Mild Gore, Mystery, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Alternating, Portal Fantasy, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sharing a Body, Tags Contain Spoilers, Updates Mondays, arowrimo, as is romance, but age differences are talked about a lot, but not really, content warnings in chapters, eden would throw a fit at calling it magic but there you are, from here on out - Freeform, mentions of human experimentation and genocide, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:56:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29741163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanita_Cynth/pseuds/Amanita_Cynth
Summary: “I know exactly four things about Alway.” She said wryly. “She’s 23, a genius, she keeps at least three feet between her and other people at all times, and she can root out the truth like nobody else.” Of course, coming from another profiler, such an assessment carried a lot of weight.Eden Alway, the newest member of an FBI profiling unit, is odd even by their standards. But as they begin to pry more into her life and struggle with some of what they find, her past is racing to catch up with her and drag them into the storm that was her life. Featuring misunderstandings, odd behaviour, the constant problems of amatonormativity, and a rapidly escalating series of bizarre problems that they are in no way qualified for but definitely isn’t magic.
Series: AroWriMo 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2145459
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. The First Impressions Case

**Author's Note:**

> Used prompts self-reliance and nonromantic relationships for arowrimo week 4. 
> 
> Please make sure to check the chapter summaries for content warnings related to those chapters, some will definitely be worse than others though I'm trying to keep the gorey details to a minimum. Amatonormativty, discussions of romance and discussions of unbalanced power dynamics in relationships are all pretty heavily discussed for at least the first half of the story.

Eden Alway, standing boredly in the conference room, had degrees in molecular chemistry, advanced physics, psychology, and, bizarrely, political science. According to the recommendation from his unit chief that put her through the academy on an accelerated course, she showed a natural aptitude for their line of work. 

She was also 23 years old. 

Montaya had seen this job chew up a young genius before- Baker had managed to not get spit out by the skin of his teeth- and didn’t exactly want to watch that happen again. She wasn’t acting like Baker had been, which was awkward and desperate to belong and unsure of his self-worth. Alway, in contrast, was standing still with her hands in the pockets of her long, dark blue coat with an air of calm self-confidence that seemed real to his trained eye. She didn’t need their approval. She already knew exactly who she was. 

“I still don’t like it.” He said to Fisher, because their unit was close enough that he didn’t mind people questioning him. 

“I know.” Fisher said. “But our technical analysts couldn’t find anything that contradicted her story of being raised off the grid, and I’ve never seen somebody engage with a presentation that well before. She pointed out an angle that none of us had ever considered and it led to us actually closing that cold case.” 

Yeah, Montaya remembered. But it didn’t calm the unease in his gut. Too young was too young, and she also reminded him of some of the other geniuses they’d met on cases, arrogant and too reliant on their intelligence. Not to mention- 

“And did this one come with an exemption from the physical as well?” 

“Not at all. She actually passed very well.” Fisher frowned slightly. Not a surprise; it wasn’t often people just rocked up and passed the physical without extensive training in preparation. “And her marksmanship scores were good. She’s certified to carry, though she’s made it clear she won’t be making a habit of it.” 

“Is there anything she can’t do?” Montaya snorted. 

“Yes. Act professionally in any capacity.” Fisher said dryly. “It’ll probably be best if we keep her from interacting too much with the LEOs.” 

“Babysitting duty.” Montaya sighed. He’d had to do a bit of that when Baker had joined, though in that case it had been more for the kid’s sake than the officers. 

“If I were you I wouldn’t say that around her.” He teased lightly before gesturing for Montaya to follow him into the room. 

Alway looked up with mild curiosity and what seemed like a little relief at finally having something to do. Montaya wondered if she was cold; this close it looked like the long coat she was wearing was made of wool with deep pockets.

“Eden Alway, this is SSA Elian Montaya.” Fisher introduced them. Montaya held his hand out and she just looked down at it before glancing up at his face with a blank expression as he withdrew it again slowly. Unlike Baker she didn’t brother verbally refusing, letting her behavior do the talking for her. Interesting. Fisher, being Fisher, had clearly read enough into her closed-off body language to not even bother offering a hand. “He’ll be the one to show you around and he’s going to be in charge of you for the first few cases you go on. If you have any questions feel free to ask him.”

“Ah, a babysitter.” She commented with a sigh. Montaya didn’t raise an eyebrow at either the echo of what he’d said earlier or at the faint hint of a European-sounding accent, but she still shot him a piercing look like something of it had leaked through. “Sure, whatever you say, boss.” 

Not entirely respectful but Montaya didn’t bother getting on her ass about it, especially with Fisher still standing right there. Besides, he was willing to allow her a little leeway considering she was clearly unhappy about it but not actually arguing. 

“Very well.” Fisher nodded, taking a step back. “I’ll be in my office all day. Come by if there are any problems that you can’t handle.” And then he left, leaving the two of them staring awkwardly at each other for a moment. 

Alway jammed her hands deeper into her pockets and rocked back on her heels a little. 

“So, you’re gonna give me the grand tour?” She asked. 

“We’ll start with the most important area- the coffee machine.” He joked, gesturing for her to follow him. 

“Ah, I’m trying to quit.” She admitted a little sheepishly, though she followed him casually enough. 

“A noble goal, but one that will inevitably fail in this line of work.” He returned. 

She snorted lightly, a smirk flashing across her face with a slight jerk of her head. He took that as a victory. 

Over the next hour he showed her all the important places and used the time to try and feel out her personality a bit. She wasn’t exactly stand-offish, but she was certainly blunt and reacted to most of his jokes with blank looks or a snort depending on how they landed. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if they would ever get on too well. Even with how well he usually read people she was turning out to be unnervingly difficult to predict, and her general air of apathy was grating on him.

“And this will be your desk.” He finished with a wave of his hand. Something twisted in his chest at the memory of Brown, walking away when the wounds left on her psyche became too much and leaving a ragged hole in the team’s dynamic that had never fully closed, but he fought past it. “There should be a paper on your desk that will help you set up your login. You oughta get that done.” 

To his discomfort she was watching him like something of his emotion had slipped through but to her credit she didn’t comment, simply stepped forward to glance over what would be her workspace. 

She sat down and promptly spun the chair around a few times with an absent hum before finally pulling her hands out of her pockets to pull herself over to the desk. Montaya blinked at the sight of the gloves she was wearing, ends covered by what seemed to be arm warmers, all of it black.

“I can turn the AC up if you want.” He offered, and she stopped poking experimentally at the keyboard to stare at him. 

“Huh?” She went. 

“I wondered if you were cold.” He explained, gesturing at her now visible hands. She followed his gesture and her face shut down. 

“I’m not cold.” Was all she said, turning her attention firmly back to her desktop. 

Okay then. Germaphobe, maybe? It would explain the distance she kept from other people and the gloves, and it wasn’t uncommon from his previous experiences with people considered geniuses. Whatever the reason it was clearly a touchy subject, pardon the pun. 

If she were a suspect or a person of interest in a case this was exactly where he would have kept pushing. But that was hardly fair to do to a co-worker, even a new one, and they had an unspoken rule about trying to not profile each other. Hard as it was, he ignored his profiling instincts in favor of just sitting back and properly looking at her. 

None of her clothes were tight on her, from the white button-up to the dark grey chinos. Her combat-style boots and her belt were both black and seemed to be made of real leather, and she only had a single, silver stud earring with an odd pattern on it. Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that he was struggling to think of a way to describe that wasn’t copper- and he was also having a fun time trying to figure out what mix of ancestry had led to such bright hair in such thick strands when combined with her skin tone, a little paler and warmer than his own. 

But beyond the shallow appearance of professionalism it started to fall apart. Her shirt was untucked, her ponytail loose enough to leave large swoops of hair next to her face and strands falling in front of her eyes. And most glaringly was the way she was sitting, slouched and leaned back with practiced insouciance. If there were a way for her to get her feet up onto the desk he was sure she would, and if she didn’t have to be using her hands for typing he was certain they would be laced behind her head. 

It took a few minutes of her going through the process of setting her desktop up, humming the entire time, before she stopped and asked without looking away from the screen, 

“What?” 

“Excuse me?” 

She sighed heavily and turned to glare at him. 

“You’re annoyed. What?” She asked impatiently. 

All right then, if she really wanted to know. 

“You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.” 

“I’m setting up my fucking _login_.” She rolled her eyes as he bit back a scowl. “I don’t need to be acting like I’m heading for a hostage situation.” 

“That’s not what I meant.” He frowned at her. “Do you know how hard some people work to climb the ranks into this position? How coveted positions in profiling teams are?”

“No.” She stated, sounding markedly unimpressed as she glanced back at her screen like she didn’t even care enough about the conversation to give him her full attention. 

“You should at least recognize that you’re lucky to be here. Some agents would give their left arm to work with the BAU. If you don’t want to be here then you can go.” 

Her hands clenched around the armrests. A part of him was thinking about how Baker would have reacted if Montaya had been anywhere near this confrontational on their first meeting, and it wouldn’t have been pretty. But once again, Alway proved herself different. Instead of retreating into herself and holding up facts like a shield, she met him head-on. 

“Listen, man, you don’t have to like me.” She said flatly. “You don’t even need to be nice to me. But we’re not doing this shit where you tell me how I’m supposed to be feeling about your merry band of illustrious men. Plus I got in on my own merit, no luck involved. So if the tour is over, kindly fuck off and take your opinions with you.” 

He blinked in shock as she sharply turned back to the desktop and started aggressively tapping away. Fisher had apparently not been kidding about the lack of professionalism. 

And, he realized with a growing mix of dread and shame, he was meant to be watching out for her for a while. Which would be hard to manage with them at such odds. Obvious temper or not, he had been the one to poke at her and he would be the one Fisher would find blame with. 

“Listen, kid.” He started, and she stopped typing but didn’t look at him. “I’m sorry.” He said plainly, and she twitched her head slightly in his direction. Her brows were still furrowed and her eyes were more lidded than they had been before, but she was clearly listening. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have tried to tell you how to feel or judge you without seeing your work. I just want to make sure you show the respect to the position that it deserves.” A look flashed across her face, almost like amusement, before it was back to the disgruntled one from before. 

There was a pause before she sighed heavily and spun her chair around so she was facing him, kicking one leg up onto her knee and crossing her arms as she did so with a smile on her face.

“I never treat anything with the respect it deserves.” She said lightly, and he couldn’t help but narrow his eyes in suspicion at the change of mood before the smile slid off her face and left her staring intently at him. “You can be sure I will do my job and do it well, but I’m going to do it _my_ way. I’m not gonna put on airs and graces and I’m not gonna let this job break me. Then I’ll just be another victim of these fuckers, won’t I?” 

As she used her dangling leg to spin herself back around and simultaneously slide into a more normal sitting position he blinked again, but this time not at the language. He’d never considered it like that and wasn’t sure he completely agreed, but it was an oddly wise thing to hear from someone so young.

“Okay.” He settled on. What else could he say right now? He still wasn’t exactly happy, especially because he was having his doubts about her being able to be a team player, but that wasn’t her fault or his place. If Fisher had gone to so much effort to get her there then there must have been a good reason for it. “But seriously, if you need help with anything come get me.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved a hand at him dismissively and he went back to his own desk, keeping an eye on her as the rest of their co-workers started to filter in on their half-days. It was the norm so soon after they’d closed a case, but the lingering weariness wasn’t enough to stop them from eagerly introducing themselves to the newbie they’d heard so little about. 

Baker had been worried about some sort of weird, genius pissing contest or something happening, but if anything Alway had reacted the most favorably to him, actually asking him questions and seeming pleased and impressed with his breadth of knowledge. They seemed to have spent their time working out what areas they knew and what overlap they had, which seemed to be surprisingly small. Baker appeared relieved about that, and Montaya made a note to once again remind him that his worth wasn’t linked to his usefulness. 

The technical analysts that worked with their team in particular- Maddox, Schwartz, and Floyd- introduced themselves with their usual eagerness. Alway seemed a bit nonplussed by the energy and Montaya was certain that she didn’t remember any of their names but she also didn’t seem annoyed at all by the volume and instead more amused. Montaya thought it also helped that she only had to loudly set her boundaries once and they all stopped trying to touch her after that.

Honestly, he’d been most worried about her and Lewis. He knew that sometimes in male-dominated workspaces women didn’t get along well, mistakenly seeing each other as competition. When they’d both given each other piercing, assessing looks he’d feared the worst, but Alway had simply asked after Lewis’ shampoo, apparently liking the luster of her hair, and Lewis had responded with a warm promise to point it out to her. Admittedly not what he’d expected, but he was beginning to realize that any and all assumptions about Alway were bound to turn out wrong.

Before he knew it, a week had passed. Once the excitement of her introduction was over Alway had retreated a little, watching the way they all interacted with each other with interest. If someone spoke to her she responded to it amicably enough but was never the one to initiate, which wasn’t making Montaya feel better about her ability to be a team player. 

Nonetheless, the technical analysts were already completely taken with her, some of the more eccentric ones cooing over her like a child and, even more bizarrely, Alway allowing it with a minimum of grumbling. Montaya chalked that one up to a mix of her complete ineptness with most digital technology and her brusque brand of charisma. 

It continued to do little for him but he could admit that it was because he saw it as a challenge. A lot of people seemed to appreciate her honesty and straightforwardness even if they didn’t always like the way it was presented. Since the technical analysts often didn’t fit into the aggressive, macho molds that a lot of field agents did, he figured part of it was enjoying someone more academic who didn’t fit that alpha male sort of dynamic. 

In the end, her personality didn’t matter, because their first case showed that she hadn’t been exaggerating. She could do the job, and do it well, and do it in her own way. 

* * *

If it were possible to pick a first case to go out on, nobody would have picked this. No case was ever _easy_ , but some were worse than others and this was certainly up there for the worst of them. You couldn’t help but start to build a sort of catalog of reference points in your head after a while- it was human nature- and the sheer level of brutality going on here was probably going to be leading to a lot of nightmares for a lot of people. 

But Alway had gotten a tight, annoyed look on her face before anyone had even managed to voice it, and they couldn’t exactly keep her away from the more horrid parts of their job for too long, so here she was, stepping into a dingy alley. 

Most new people, when faced with this level of carnage and depravity, would have a bad reaction. Shut down, or get emotional, or feel ill or something. From the looks of things a couple of the LEOs had staggered away and thrown up, for instance.

Alway, though, didn’t do any of that. She just looked at the scene with the weary resignation of agents far her elder and started to circle it, head tilting back and forth as she took the details in. If Montaya absolutely had to guess this wasn’t even cracking top ten in nightmare fuel for her, which was a disturbing thing to realize. 

When she crouched by the body, peering closer at something, he felt his knees ache at the thought of copying her and instead just stepped up to her side, loudly enough to not startle her and leaving the usual space between them. 

“See something?” He asked. 

“Precision.” She answered, voice distracted, then shook her head and stood up again. 

Montaya was silently a little thankful for that; unlike Baker she could often split her attention enough to hold a conversation while focused on something, but it was usually quite hard to follow if not completely incomprehensible. She forgot that people couldn’t follow her trains of thought. 

“Disrupted precision, more importantly. Most of the cuts are clean, but there’s one that went off course and got corrected, and another that’s completely jagged. Maybe he woke up? Either way, the Unsub’s obsessed with this pattern and it went incomplete.” She finished, continuing to pensively stare down, but Montaya felt fairly certain that she was more looking through him as she thought than actually seeing what was there. 

“And there’s a lot of overkill going on.” He noted himself. The Unsub’s frustration with the failure to complete the pattern was clear. 

“What is it?” Fisher asked, and Montaya quickly relayed what Alway had seen, his own heart already sinking as Fisher frowned. Both of them knew what something like that meant. 

“So he’s going to be desperate and strike again soon.” Fisher voiced. “Hopefully, that desperation will lead him to make a mistake.” 

“We can’t watch every young, blond man in the city.” Montaya pointed out wearily. “There’s gotta be thousands in the comfort zone.” 

“Approximately ten thousand, four hundred and twenty-nine.” Baker piped up from where he’d been silently watching proceedings. At least it seemed to finally get Alway’s attention back to the present. 

“Well I sure as fuck can’t do maths like that.” She said, staring. Fisher sighed ever so slightly, and one of the Detectives let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. 

“Er, well-” Baker started nervously, and she finally pulled her hands out of her pockets to hold them up placatingly, looking like she was refraining from rolling her eyes. 

“Now, now, I just meant that it was impressive, not that it was a bad thing. What sort of stats do you even have memorized to be able to do that?” Her voice was growing more absent as her attention drifted back to the dead man’s face again and her arms slowly lowered to her sides. 

“Um, lots.” Baker replied, clearly also aware that she wasn’t paying attention anymore. “What is it?” 

And then, in a startling leap of logic that Montaya would later come to dread but continue to be impressed by, she asked,

“Does he have a brother?”

(The thing was, when he thought about it later, he could see how she’d gotten there. Their Unsub had a very specific type. Their Unsub also needed to finish their ritual and hadn’t been able to, so they’d want to try and recreate it. In the absence of the late victim the best way would be a relative, but it’d have to be one of a similar age _and_ look, hence brother. He just wondered how much of that had been consciously thought about by her.) 

After that Alway mostly took a step back and let the more experienced agents handle things, sticking close to Baker and cajoling him into some sort of talk about physics that Montaya had no chance of following but she seemed pretty intrigued by. Her eyes continued to flick about, taking in their dynamic when on a case in the same way she’d watched them in the office. 

The brother was quickly taken into protective custody and they knew that would only make the Unsub more desperate, but it had also brought them some time. Enough time, as it turned out, to figure out his identity and go to arrest him. 

They didn’t take Alway with them, leaving her and Baker at the station. She’d frowned but not protested, which earned her some points with Montaya if he was being honest. They didn’t want to deal with trying to add a completely new element to their dynamic when against such a potentially dangerous enemy and she clearly understood that. Putting that above her own pride was a little surprising to him, but it made him feel a bit better about her chances on the team. 

He was still only giving her a few months, tops, before she quit. 

She’d watched them fill out the final paperwork with that already familiar expression of bored curiosity and dutifully followed them back to the plane, politely turning down their offers for celebratory drinks before falling asleep. None of the rest of them were even that tired- it had been a rather short case, by their standards, only just over a day- so there had been a few jokes about her getting into good sleeping habits early. 

Fisher was the only one to try and stop her when they were all going their own ways after landing, offering her a small smile as she openly yawned. 

“Lucky you, Alway. This was an unusually quick and easy first case.” 

Montaya had expected the same snubbing of luck like he’d gotten, an annoyed assertion that it was her work, not luck, that had led to this scenario. Judging by her frown she might have been thinking some of that, but she didn’t actually voice any of it. 

“Thanks, boss.” Was all she said. 

“Get some rest.” He chuckled. If it were anyone else Montaya thought he might have clapped them on the shoulder. Alway, however, probably wouldn’t react favorably to such a gesture. “And I know you were told this before, but remember that after cases we have two half-days to recover. I don’t want to see you in here until midday.” 

“Right.” She nodded, glancing around before starting to awkwardly walk away. “Uh, see you.” 

“See you tomorrow, Alway.” Fisher replied politely, and then she was gone.

* * *

The evening found Fisher staring down at Alway’s file on his desk, absently tapping his pen against the wood. She’d performed as well as he’d hoped, but still... 

The analysts had confirmed what they could have of Alway’s background long before he’d officially put her name forward for recruitment, so he wasn’t sure why he was worrying about it now. She basically hadn’t existed on paper before her time at college, and he still wasn’t entirely sure how she’d managed to get in on so many scholarships, but her college transcripts were what most of her file consisted of. 

Schwartz was the best at digging up people’s pasts and had confirmed that while Alway did have a high school diploma, it was probably fake. Before that there was no sign of her existing at all and Schwartz had to begrudgingly assume that her tale of growing up in an off-the-grid cult was true. Otherwise it was hard to avoid showing up somewhere and Alway certainly hadn’t. 

With a sigh he put her file back in the drawer and leaned back, still tapping his pen against the desk in thought. He’d already known about Alway’s shady past- she’d been sure to let him know that it would cause problems in hiring her- and had made the decision to take her on anyway. And so far, it seemed to be going well, even if her reaction to the body had been a little unnerving. He was self-aware enough to know that was what had him second-guessing a decision made months ago. 

At the end of the day, the bet had already been made. He would just have to see if it shook out in his favor. 


	2. The Second Opinion Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Media Liaison Micheal Rizzo meets the newbie Eden Alway and gets to know her over the course of a case. 
> 
> CWs: only very mild on-screen violence, fire mentions

Rizzo had, even on medical leave, heard from his friends about the rookie at the office. It hadn’t exactly been useful information- Lewis had only said something about split ends and Baker had mostly rambled about math that went right over his head- but it had certainly been interesting. Fisher had, as usual, just given a brusque and professional assessment of her. Montaya had barely said anything, which said a lot on its own. 

The first person he saw upon getting in was Lewis, who greeted him exuberantly. 

“Rizzo!” She’d quickly enveloped him in a hug. “How you feeling? How’s the leg?” 

“I’m great.” He assured her. “Got the all clear and ready to be back in the field.” 

“That’s good, because Fisher wants us in the conference room in five.” Lewis told him with a slightly bemused sigh. “So, welcome back I guess?”

He couldn’t help but laugh at that. 

“Typical, right?” He joked. 

“And I’ve got even more typical news for you: Fisher wants you to stick by Alway for this case.”

“Well then, come on, spill the deets about her! The gossip’s been unusually thin on the ground! I wanna know what I’m going to be dealing with.”

“I know exactly four things about Alway.” She said wryly. “She’s 23, a genius, she keeps at least three feet between her and other people at all times, and she can root out the truth like nobody else.” Of course, coming from another profiler, such an assessment carried a lot of weight. 

“So why am I watching her then?” Rizzo asked, somewhat cautious about such a development. He usually stuck with Fisher in order to mediate between the agents and locals, though he didn’t overly mind. It’d give him a chance to get to know her better even amidst the chaos of a case.

“One, to get used to her. And two, because she’s a diplomatic nightmare.” Lewis admitted. “Some cop insulted Baker, you know what some people can be like about him when we’re not watching, and Alway nearly got into a fistfight with him in the middle of the station.”

“Wow.” Rizzo whistled. He certainly appreciated the sentiment- when the insults and pranks that Baker often had to endure on cases first came out everyone had been furious and they’d been more careful since- but that was rash. “But I guess she’s young and impulsive.” 

“Yes.” Lewis said, a little exasperated. “So until she cools down a bit, Fisher wants people keeping an eye on her. And not letting her interface directly with the locals if we can help it.” 

“Fair enough.” He agreed with a chuckle. “Do the honors of introducing me?” 

“Of course! I wouldn’t leave you high and dry, she can be a little intense.” 

Which turned out to not be at all an exaggeration. 

“Who’s this?” Alway asked bluntly upon seeing him, pausing with her bag half off her shoulder to stare at him assessingly. 

“Alway, this is SSA Michael Rizzo, our media liaison. Rizzo, this is SSA Eden Alway, the new profiler.” Lewis introduced them. 

“Oh, thank god.” Alway said, which hadn’t exactly been what he was expecting. “A PR guy, right? I was thinking that we desperately needed one of those.” 

“You did?” He blinked, fighting down the urge to automatically offer a hand. 

“Yeah, I learnt my lesson on that one.” Alway snorted. “And I’m not so great with people. Are you my new babysitter?”

“Er.” Rizzo was literally trained to be able to coordinate with lots of people but he was scrambling for that training in the face of Alway. Judging by the looks on some of his friends’ faces, they were well aware and thought it was hilarious. “I suppose so. Is that going to be a problem?”

“No.” She said, causing Montaya to do a doubletake. Rizzo resolved to hear whatever that story was later. “I’m used to it, and I know I’m bad at people sometimes. Besides, it’s not like anyone can stop me from doing something I really want to, but you’re a people expert so I’ll try and listen to you about people things.” 

“Appreciate it.” He settled on with a quick, broad smile. She seemed a little startled at the sight of it but then hesitantly offered one back. 

“All right everyone, settle down!” Maddox called with her usual cheer as she swept into the room, Fisher behind her and idly amused at her antics as ever. “You’ve got a case in Milwaukee and the locals are weirded out.” 

“What else is new?” He joked, making Alway snort and shoot him a surprised look. 

“Rizzy, baby, welcome back!” Maddox cheered, only to clear her throat and quickly get on with the presentation at the quelling look Fisher gave her. 

* * *

He’d kept half his attention on Alway through the briefing and shuffle to the plane and had been curious about what he saw. Despite being there for a couple of months she seemed to still be trying to find her place. She spoke up during the briefing and made some good points but stayed quiet in the more casual trip to the plane, only speaking when spoken to first or when it was in a one-on-one situation. Otherwise, she was just watching them interact. 

When they got on the plane, however, she threw herself down on the seat opposite him. He could immediately see why she aggravated Montaya a bit; she was sprawled in a way that not only had all the casual arrogance of youth but also probably made the older man’s spine ache just from seeing it. 

“So,” She grinned, all teeth, but her eyes were sharp and curious, “Not everyone here has a stick up their arse.” 

He couldn’t help but snort in surprise, seeing her lean back with a briefly satisfied look. 

“That’s not very nice.” He told her, though he let his amusement reign clear in his voice. 

“Not very kind, maybe.” She sniffed. “But true.” 

“Ah, well, I hate to burst your bubble but a lot of rules actually do exist for a reason and not just to annoy you.” He smiled, aware that her following groan of despair was mostly theatrical. The others were all sneaking glances, seeming a mix of amused and surprised. Apparently this was a mostly new side to her for them. “Not to be rude but was there something you wanted?”

“Hmm, yeah.” She said, some of her levity falling away. “You’ve got to lie to people, right? Or tell the press to lie, I guess. I was just wondering how you managed to do it without feeling bad.” 

“I do feel bad sometimes.” He corrected gently. “But I know that it’s to make it easier to catch the Unsubs and therefore make the world safer in the long run.” 

She grimaced very briefly as if something had hit some nerve, but it vanished again as she laced her hands behind her head and kicked one leg up onto her other knee. He caught sight of Montaya giving her an exasperated look- it was certainly a very nonchalant stance, he’d give her that. It didn’t look at all like someone about to try and hunt down someone that’d already killed two people. 

“I get it.” She shrugged with one shoulder. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“I understand.” He said, then grinned at her. “My turn. Fisher said you were qualified to carry, but I don’t see one on you.”

“Oh.” She blinked and then smiled wryly at him. “No, I don’t carry, I mostly got qualified in case I ever had to pick up someone else’s. I don’t like guns. They’re designed to kill, and nothing else. Even if you try to just wound someone with them it can be really bad.” 

“Makes sense.” He nodded, and she blinked at him 

“Not going to say that’s a stupid stance?” 

“That’s hardly my place, is it?” He frowned. “Sure, it might be easier to kill somebody than deal with it another way. Avoiding killing might lead to more suffering and death. But if you can actually pull that off, there’s no denying it’s a better outcome. And it’s your decision, not mine.” 

“...Huh.” 

“Sorry to interrupt, but the analysts need to talk to us.” Fisher said grimly, standing to the side of them. “There’s been a third killing and you two will be going straight to the crime scene with me when we arrive. Come hear the new information.” 

The only other thing she said to him was during the shuffle from plane to cars, when nobody was paying any attention to them. 

“Montaya reminds me of someone I used to know.” She sounded unhappy about that, but he didn’t get the chance to ask any further questions since they were being hurried along. 

* * *

Alway took a single step into the building, sniffed at the air, and then asked the room at large, 

“Was there an electrical fire?” 

Fisher, who’d been in the middle of introducing them, turned to her with a slightly reprimanding frown at the interruption. But the Detective was staring at her with a rather different expression. 

“How did you know that?” He asked. 

“Oh, the smell.” Alway replied in a tone that Rizzo figured he’d have to get used to quickly, a poor attempt at hiding the fact that she was annoyed at having to state something so obvious to her.

“But it stopped burning hours ago.”

“Yes?” She said, like that was also obvious, and then started trotting down the hallway. Fisher caught his eye and tilted his head in a clear order to do as previously discussed, so he obediently followed her. 

She’d stopped in the threshold of a clearly burned room, eyeing the scorched plasterboard walls and floors with suspicion while grumbling about cheap materials under her breath. You didn’t need to be a genius to see where the fire had started, and after a few more moments Alway seemed to decide it was safe enough and carefully picked her way to the mess of melted plastic bracketed by a completely blackened wall and floor that had to have been the starting point. 

She crouched down next to it as Rizzo just continued to watch and frowned at whatever she saw. 

“Huh.” She said to herself. 

“What is it?” He asked and she jumped a little like she’d forgotten he was there, then stood again with a sigh as she dusted her hands against each other. 

“Normally electric fires start from overuse of an outlet or because of old parts, but there was only one thing plugged in and it didn’t seem old enough to be a problem.” She answered, growing visibly more thoughtful as she continued. “In fact, I think this is a portable outlet that was plugged in.” 

“Forensic countermeasure?” He offered, well used to his role as someone to bounce ideas off of. 

“Maybe.” She allowed. “But there are easier ways to start a fire than somehow forcing this, and it wouldn’t be a hot enough fire to completely burn a body. Not that the Unsub even tried to use it for that.” She went quiet, staring down at the half-melted plastic, and he’d seen a similar enough facial expression on Baker before to know to stay quiet and let her work through it. “I think this was a way to get attention?” 

He took a moment to process that. Despite not being a trained profiler he’d picked up a fair amount from the others over the course of working with them. 

“But pyromaniacs don’t usually kill.” He eventually pointed out. “The fire itself and the reactions to it are the point.” 

“Yes.” She agreed, still frowning impressively. “But the first two kills didn’t have this factor. I’m just trying to decide if it was somehow an accident or if it’s an evolution.” 

“Let’s catch up with Fisher. He or the others might have some insight.” He suggested.

“Right. Of course.” She gestured for him to leave first. He raised an eyebrow but did so, glancing back to see her dutifully following him. An acknowledgment of his greater experience or an attempt at an apology for Fisher for her earlier behavior? Hard to tell. 

Fisher listened to them with a thoughtful frown before offering his own suggestions. 

“If it isn’t an accident then it is a strange evolution. I don’t think this Unsub would be able to work with another, but why this shift in pathologies? If it was deliberate then the electrical fire might be important to the Unsub somehow. You’re sure this was hard to do deliberately, Alway?”

She rolled her shoulders back with a rueful twist to her mouth, looking at the ceiling as she considered it. 

“Electrical fires aren’t really hard to start, especially with the safety standards here, but the specific way this was done? I can’t actually figure out how they did it. It would have been hard, boss.” 

“I’ll get it taken to the station ASAP.” Fisher decided. “If it turns out to be an important factor then I want you to be able to work out how it happened. Such detail might offer an important insight into the Unsub’s background. Keep thinking about it for now.” 

“Yes boss.” She saluted him sardonically and he just gave her a deadpan look as she shoved her hands back in her pockets again quickly. When around other people that weren’t on their team she seemed to be keeping them hidden much more. 

“I’m going back to the station to coordinate with what the others have found. Stay here and canvas the rest of the scene then join us.” 

“Yes boss.” She said, much more seriously. 

“Yessir.” Rizzo himself answered, both of them watching as he nodded to them, spoke one last time to the Detective on scene, and then left. Then he glanced aside to Alway, who just did one of her one-shouldered shrugs at him. 

“Let’s start with the body.” He decided. 

“You’ve picked up some profiling stuff, huh?” She asked as she dutifully turned towards the bedroom the latest victim had been found in. 

“Couldn’t really help it.” He pointed out wryly. 

“It’s good. I might be good at this, but I’m still new. I need a second opinion.” She replied, not even looking at him as she led the way. He blinked after her then smiled as he followed. Not as self-absorbed as Montaya seemed to think, after all. Then again, he’d been reluctant about Baker at the beginning and had been very wrong about him too. 

The victim didn’t give them much, in the end. She hadn’t helped to clarify any sort of victimology and hadn’t shown any deviation from the previous MO or any escalation in the violence. Alway had just sighed at the sight of her and when they left checked that the CSIs had all the photographs they needed before asking for someone to cover her up. 

There wasn’t anything else in the vicinity that caught their attention either, nothing that differed from the previous cases. Just the fire. Which made it all the more likely that the fire _had_ been the escalation. 

“Alright.” Alway sighed as they stood outside the apartment complex in the cold air for a moment. “Let’s head to the-” She cut herself off with a swear as her phone started ringing and started digging around in the pockets inside of her coat for it. Until then Rizzo hadn’t even realized that it had inside pockets. Just how much stuff was she carrying with her at all times? 

“Alway.” She answered shortly once she managed to find it, and then sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth. “I see. Yes, boss.” And she hung up with another hissed swear. 

“What is it?” Rizzo asked as she shoved it roughly and without a word back into the pocket she’d pulled it from. 

“Might have another victim. Fisher wants us at the building where the fire is right now so if there _is_ another victim we can take a look with him straight away. That’s only, what, eight hours since we heard about this one?”

Rizzo thought about that for a moment, since he’d already realized that Alway was surprisingly terrible at keeping track of the time and just relied on other people to keep her on track. The time zone changes really threw her off, she’d said, as she gave her phone to an amused Lewis to change the current time on. 

“It takes an hour or so for that information to filter through to us, so that’s probably ten or eleven hours since the last murder. We were here for almost three hours.” He added at her mildly surprised look. 

“That’s still fast.” She said as she looked around for their jeep. Rizzo pointed it out and they made for it as she continued, “He’s speeding up.” 

“Maybe he heard we were here?”

“Maybe.” She frowned as she opened the passenger door. Considering her general air of self-reliance he would have expected her to want to drive but didn’t consider as he got in. “But how?” 

“...Maybe he saw us himself.” He suggested, pausing for a moment in the middle of getting ready to drive. He saw Alway pause also, just about to click her seatbelt in. “It’s a tight comfort area, isn’t it?”

“I’m not Baker, I can’t calculate that in my head.” She frowned, clicking in finally as he started the car up. “But it seems like it. Let’s get there.” 

He didn’t protest and turned on the sirens, following the GPS instructions in single-minded silence, practically hearing the gears in Alway’s head turning next to him as that genius brain ticked over it. 

When they arrived the area was swarming with firefighters and police, though there didn’t seem to be much smoke coming from the house anymore. Rizzo, distracted by finally finding Fisher in the crowds and catching his eye, didn’t notice that Alway was no longer at his side staring pensively at the house until he heard someone shout incredulously and saw her more than halfway to the door. 

Mainly on instinct, he followed her. His orders were to stay by her side, after all. 

“Electrical fire again.” She declared as she stepped in. 

“Hey!” One of the firemen barked. “We haven’t given the all-clear yet. You don’t know if it’s safe!” 

“Yes, I do. It’s not burning anymore.” She shot back. “The air- whatever. Was it a portable outlet again?”

“How did you know that?” He asked, momentarily startled enough to not be yelling at her anymore. Rizzo figured he should get used to hearing people say that to her.

“Dammit.” Was all she said, turning on her heel and leaving again. 

“Alway, you can’t just do that.” Fisher scolded her firmly the moment they both reappeared, herding them back behind the safety line. “We have to wait to be told it’s safe.”

“I knew the fire was out!” She exclaimed, clearly exasperated at having to constantly repeat it. “Listen, it was an electrical fire again, started from a portable outlet. They found the body when they broke in to put the fire out. Same MO.”

That got Fisher to pause for a moment. 

“Rizzo, please deal with the others on the ground for a moment.” He said, and Rizzo nodded, looked around, and made for the man in charge of the fire crew. 

Apologizing for overzealous comrades for something he’d gotten practically down to a science, and within a couple of minutes the man was appeased and Rizzo was making his way back to his team members. 

“How could you possibly have known the fire was out?” He heard Fisher sternly ask her. 

“The air.” She answered grudgingly. “Fire is a hungry thing. It breathes. If there had still been a fire in there, the air would have been moving differently.” 

Fisher didn’t reply to that, which Rizzo didn’t blame him for. It was definitely an interesting thing to claim, but he didn’t know enough about fires to comment on it one way or another. 

“Alway.” He said patiently. “I understand that you’re used to going at your own pace, and most of the time I wouldn’t mind that. But this is a situation where you could be putting not only yourself but others at risk, and in those circumstances are when I need you to follow procedure, not only for safety reasons but to stop you from getting in trouble. You want to continue doing this job, right?”

“...Yes.” She answered reluctantly. 

“Then unfortunately, even if you know otherwise, you have to wait for the protocol. Understood?” 

“Yes, boss.” It was reluctant, but it was genuine; she clearly understood it was more than fair. That was the thing about Fisher, he was a firm but fair superior. Alway was young and new, and such impetuous mistakes were to be expected and used to correct future behavior, not just punished. 

“Good. So you know what to do next time so that Rizzo doesn’t have to humiliate himself apologizing on your behalf again.” 

Her head shot up, eyes wide as she looked at him. 

“You did?” She asked. 

Well, he wouldn’t really call it humiliating. Besides which, it was his job. But he had the feeling that she wouldn’t have taken the harsh words and hostile attitude anywhere near as well as he did, and it probably _would_ have been humiliating for her. 

“Sort of. But it’s no big deal.” He assured her. “It kinda is my job, after all.” 

“Still.” She said, and then bowed her head and, in fact, her entire body slightly. “Sorry. I’ll try to not do that again.” 

“I appreciate the honesty.” He said wryly. “It’s fine. Let’s just catch this bastard already.” 

“I’m behind that.” Her lips quirked slightly as she straightened again, going serious again a moment later. “I don’t like the speed of this. Want me to work on what’s starting the fires, boss?”

“Yes.” He frowned. “It looks like it really is important. Go back to the station to look at the original point of origin and I’ll get the pictures and pieces from here to you as soon as I can. I’ll make sure the people on-site know it’s a priority.” 

“Got it, boss.” She nodded before glancing at Rizzo. “He still coming with me? I don’t mind, but the others are already at the station. Do you need his pair of hands?”

“This is exactly the sort of situation he needs to be with you for.” Fisher said flatly, and Rizzo didn’t even try to hide his snort. Considering what he’d seen so far he couldn’t wait to see Alway being her usual apathetic-to-status self in the middle of a police station. “This will probably be the endgame, so until we know the Unsub’s identity and location it’s best to have everyone in one place to better facilitate information sharing and discussion. I’ll be there as soon as I finish up here. Get going.” 

“Yessir.” Rizzo nodded, gesturing for Alway to follow him. 

* * *

Luckily for everyone, Alway was thoroughly distracted by whatever mental calculations she was doing and they got to the area set aside for their team without issue. Montaya and Lewis were flipping through some files and Baker was doing...something with a single-minded focus by one of the boards. 

Alway swept over to the table covered in bagged pieces, sanitized her gloves, and started picking up bags without even acknowledging any of the others. Lewis simply looked fondly amused, already used to that kind of behavior from a particularly focused Baker. Montaya just looked exasperated, clearly also noting the similarities. 

“Hey guys, what you got?” Rizzo greeted them. 

They quickly caught him up on the parts of the profile they were sure of and what the police were currently doing. Rizzo returned the favor and explained what Alway was actually doing, well aware of the thick tension in the air from the awareness of the rapidly shortening timeline the Unsub was working on. They had a few possible suspects but not enough to question or arrest any of them. Baker was trying to narrow down the comfort zone enough to limit their suspect pool but was having trouble.

“How you doing?” Rizzo asked her once Fisher had returned an hour later and Baker had gone to talk to him about something. 

“Electrical fires aren’t exactly my thing.” She frowned. 

“So what is your ‘thing’?” Montaya asked dubiously, getting no answer. She was focused entirely on the table and might not have even registered the question. 

After a moment she muttered something to herself and absently reached a hand up, twirled her ponytail around it, and promptly started chewing on the ends of her hair. Well, no wonder she had such trouble with split ends. 

Lewis clearly thought the same, because she reached up instinctively to bat her hand away and Alway recoiled like she’d been scalded, snatching her hands away in front of her chest, eyes wide. After a moment her hands flexed and then slowly lowered to her side as she forced herself to relax, though Lewis had already backed up a few paces with her hands consolingly in the air. 

“Don’t...do that.” Alway said roughly, keeping her voice as level as she could. 

“I won’t.” Lewis promised. “Sorry.” 

“Yeah, same.” Alway grunted, rubbing at her face seemingly in half an attempt to hide the blush growing there and half out of real weariness. “Fuck, this is pissing me off. I can’t figure it out.”

“If you can’t, that’s okay.” Rizzo offered. 

“But the profile isn’t detailed enough right now!” She argued. “If I could just figure out how these fires are being started it’d give us such a specific detail...”

He saw Montaya frown and open his mouth, and could already tell that whatever he was going to say wasn’t going to end well, so he quickly spoke before the other man got a choice. 

“You’re not working alone.” She just stared at him and he continued, “Someone else could find the thing that tips the scales enough. I’m not necessarily telling you to relax, because in reality every minute counts, but you don’t have to put the success of the whole team entirely on your shoulders.” 

Alway was still staring, except now she seemed a little lost. 

“Right. I know that.” She said, and then frowned at the ground as if she didn’t even believe herself. Rizzo didn’t blame her, because he didn’t believe her either. Judging by the way Montaya crossed his arms and looked at her, he certainly didn’t. 

But then her frown shifted, and she looked at the table of parts with narrowed eyes as she went, “Wait.” 

They waited. 

“Salt.” She declared, and swept out of the room towards Fisher as they shared baffled glances. Rizzo stumbled to his feet and hurried after her.

“Alway-” Fisher greeted, glancing away from Baker for a moment, but she was already talking. 

“I didn’t recognise it at first but there are minute salt crystals inside the portable sockets.” She said quickly as both of them stared at her. 

“Oh.” Baker blinked. “Sodium helps to increase conductivity. But no water was found in them, correct?” 

“No, I think he was dunking the sockets he plugged _in_ into saltwater.” She explained. “With the right adjustments to the portable outlets, it would cause an immediate short circuit. With the state they’re in I can’t tell, but I think he turned off the safety measure, the GCF or whatever it’s called, I honestly can’t remember.” 

“And this would be enough to start a fire?” Fisher checked. 

“I mean, in ideal circumstances, but he’s pretty much ensuring those circumstances occur.” She held a hand up. “Another thing. We only found the portable outlets at the sites, not whatever he was plugging into them. Taking it out again definitely wouldn’t be easy or even safe, even with rubber gloves. Existing fire aside, messing with that could earn you a shock or even a burn.” 

“So it might be related to whatever traumatic event happened in the Unsub’s life that inspired this change in MO or triggered the killings.” Fisher nodded slowly. “And if the salt is also related and not just an easy way to start the fire... One minute.” 

He took a step away and pulled out his phone as Alway glanced at Baker, suddenly grimaced, and quietly went, 

“Sorry to interrupt like that.” 

“No no, it’s fine. You had a good reason.” He waved it off. 

“Floyd,” Fisher said down the phone, getting their attention again. “I need you to run your previous search parameters again, but this time limit it to any fires that happened on or near the ocean.” 

There was a long pause, stretching into a minute, then two, before he turned and gave them a silent thumbs up while still listening to what Floyd had to say. Even as he continued to listen, the rest of them were relaxing slightly, feeling some of the tension drain away. There would still be obstacles before this ordeal could be over, but the biggest one was surpassed. 

They knew who they were after. 

Fisher finally hung up and returned to them with a small smile. 

“Justin Warren. A few years ago he was on a small boat with ten other people, including his parents and sister. It was just meant to be a fun overnight trip, but some faulty wiring caught alight from a portable outlet that had been plugged in. Investigators never discovered the true cause of the fire- the entire boat sank- so nobody was ever charged for the deaths. Justin’s sister recently died from complications from injuries sustained that night.”

“So the random victimology is because the other people on the boat were also varied.” Baker realized. “It was just anyone that reminded him of the other passengers...” 

“And as his delusions grew worse the criteria became basically anybody.” Fisher nodded. “Grab Montaya and Lewis. I’ll distribute his home address. Out in five.”

“Yessir.” Baker and Rizzo nodded, and if Alway stayed silent and had looked a little pale since about halfway through Fisher’s explanation, well. They unfortunately had other things to worry about.

* * *

Apparently, Alway rarely went with them to make arrests unless they were short-handed. Part of him would have expected her to put up more of a fuss about being kept back due to her not usually carrying, yet considering her comments about guns he supposed he could see why she would allow it. 

The compromise was apparently her standing across the street behind the usual police line and keeping watch. Which meant that’s where Rizzo was too. 

He’d already noticed that when she wasn’t focused on something then she lived with her head on a swivel. It was an obvious behavior that had gone unmentioned, probably because it strayed too close to the sort of things they usually tried to profile and were therefore trying to ignore. 

He was particularly thankful for it when her shoulders tensed slightly and she fully turned to her right and stepped halfway in front of him as she did so, hands slowly rising out of her pockets. Not entirely sure why she seemed to be shielding him he peered past her to see a man looking at the in-progress raid with a shocked expression and plastic bag on the ground at his feet. 

“Justin Warren?” She called, and his wide-eyed attention snapped to her. Yes. That was definitely him. “Justin Warren, the FBI- shit!” 

Alway had whip-sharp reflexes, off like a shot after the man as he took off the other way. It took Rizzo another moment to catch up with what was happening before he was racing after them, shouting to the officers that were all closer to the house and hadn’t noticed what was happening. 

Both of them were fast and agile and he wasn’t exactly your typical field agent. They might be able to throw down and dodge obstacles respectively, but he couldn’t do it as easily and was starting to fall behind. He could still see them though. 

Warren cut sharply into an alleyway and Alway followed him without hesitating, only to suddenly snap her hand up to catch at the pipe that was swung at her as she turned the corner. She grabbed a hold of that outstretched wrist with her other hand and used it to twist him around and slam him against the wall, keeping him easily pinned there as the pipe was absently tossed over her shoulder. 

Well christ, somebody might have mentioned that she knew martial arts. Nobody could just casually use leverage to keep somebody larger than them still like she was doing right in front of him. 

“Justin Warren, you’re under arrest for multiple murders.” She said as she cuffed him, which wasn’t quite right but Rizzo wasn’t going to point it out while he was still trying to catch his breath. Then she paused. “Uh. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say- can and will be used against you in a court of law?” 

Oh, Lord. Was this seriously her first arrest? He tried to force his breathing to calm down, somewhat succeeded, and took over the reading of the Miranda rights for her as she shot him a sheepish look. The other officers caught up and took him off of Alway’s hands, leading him back to where the cars were. 

Halfway back they ran into their co-workers. 

“Alway, Rizzo!” Fisher called sharply. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” He answered, though he remembered the sharp sound of the pipe hitting her hand, muffled by the padding of her glove, and peered over at her. “Your hand?”

“Huh?” She said, a little surprised, and then understanding swept over her and she chuckled. “Oh, it’s fine. I didn’t even feel it. Glove took most of it.” 

“He tried to hit her with a piece of broken pipe but she caught it and made the arrest.” Rizzo relayed to them. “She noticed him before he noticed us.” 

“He’d been to get some snacks, I think.” She added mildly as they watched him get put into a police car.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” Lewis asked, not exactly suspiciously but like she’d realized something. 

Alway raised an eyebrow, hands shoving deeper into her pockets as she clicked her tongue. 

“What, this time? No.” 

“But you figured it was going to happen sometime.” Montaya stated. 

“No offense, but there are few people as twitchy as me.” She shrugged in her usual lopsided way. “Besides, I’ll kill someone if I _have_ to, but I’d rather just never get in that position. Watching for surprises like this works for me fine.” 

There was a long pause before Rizzo coughed to clear the odd atmosphere after such a statement. 

“Well, it all worked out in the end. Although,” He added with a teasing smile, “Maybe memorize the Miranda rights. You’re a genius, aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes.” She grimaced. “I don’t have a perfect memory like Baker, you know.” 

For a moment his arm twitched with the urge to throw it around her shoulders like he would with anyone else, but he knew she wouldn’t like that, so he just pointed at her with a grin instead. 

“And what’s with stepping in front of me like that? I’m not short enough for that to hide me!” 

She looked honestly confused for a moment, then her mouth formed an ‘o’ of realization and she gave him another sheepish look, own arms twitching with a repressed movement. 

“Sorry. Habit. Didn’t mean to make you feel like I don’t take you seriously.” 

He blinked, because for someone usually so oblivious to the mood in the room that was surprisingly on the nose. It wasn’t her fault, per se, he was just used to the other agents keeping him back from things a bit. 

“It’s fine, I’m not offended.” He settled on. She looked at him like she didn’t fully believe him- again, more insightful than she usually was, and a part of him wondered if it was just how much she bothered to pay attention instead of ability- but let it go. 

“Whatever, let’s just get this wrapped up so we can get home.” She grunted, lacing her fingers together as she stretched her arms above her head with a loud ‘pop’ from her shoulders. 

“A good idea.” Fisher smiled lightly. 

“What are you, an old woman? Whose bones crack like that at 23?” Montaya snorted. 

“Alright fucker, if anyone’s old here it’s you.” She rolled her eyes, and walked away from the sound of his surprised spluttering and some of the others laughing or chuckling, a bright, sharp bark of her own laughter floating back to them. 

* * *

“Hey.” Rizzo turned with surprise to see Alway rubbing at one of her eyes before she dropped it, idly rolling her shoulders as she continued quietly, “The man Montaya sometimes reminds me of? He had it out for us and he used his higher position to make life hard. People who talk about the system so much just remind me a bit of him, and how systems just mean that people at the top can abuse the entire structure.” 

“Montaya wouldn’t do something like that, you know that, right?” He asked, concerned for a multitude of reasons. 

She gave him a crooked smile, but it was more tired than anything. Not surprising, considering the paperwork they’d had to handle at the station and how hard it was to get good sleep on the plane. Or, he reconsidered, when you thought about the subject they were discussing. 

“Yeah. But knowing something in your head isn’t the same as knowing it in your heart.” She cracked her neck from side to side and then gripped her bag strap. “Anyway. I figured I should let you know. See you.” And she strode away without looking back. 

He looked after her with amusement- clearly, her awkwardness had gotten the better of her and she’d fled. He should probably also get used to such abrupt exits. With a shake of his head he started to make for the elevators. 

“Rizzo, a word.” Fisher called, and he obediently halted. 

“Yes, sir?” 

“What do you think?” When he just stared in confusion Fisher smiled wryly and clarified, “Of Alway.”

“Oh.” He thought for a moment then shrugged. “She seems to be good at what she does, if a little undisciplined. Why ask me? I’m no profiler.” 

“You’re not a profiler, but you’re still one of my agents.” Fisher pointed out. “And one of the more sociable, to be frank. Montaya is the only other one anywhere near as personable or good with people, and he has his doubts about Alway’s ability to be a team player for our, well, team.” 

“Hmm.” Rizzo clicked his tongue as he thought about it. “I’m not sure I agree, honestly.”

“No?” Fisher raised an eyebrow. 

“She might not be by Montaya’s definition, but he’s kind of a quintessential FBI agent- no offense.” 

“None taken.” He waved it off with a dry smile. 

“So he expects discipline and acknowledgment of ranks and things, and she’s probably not ever going to go along with that.” He admitted. “But she was upset and changed her behavior when she found out that how she’d acted had caused trouble for me. That’s not the action of someone who doesn’t care about the people around her. So long as we keep telling her which things help us and which things cause problems I think she’ll mostly be okay.” 

“You don’t need to be a profiler to read her problems with authority.” Fisher agreed wryly, but there was a thoughtful look on his face. “I think you have the right of it. She is clearly used to doing things on her own, but so long as the reasons why she has to do things are explained it should mostly work out. She seems to finally be relaxing around us now that she’s met all of the team. Thank you for your input.” 

“Any time.” He smiled, resettling his bag against his back. “But if you don’t mind, my husband is probably waiting for me.” 

“Of course, see you in a couple of days.” Fisher waved him off. 

As Rizzo hurried towards the elevator he could only hope that had been enough to assuage some of Fisher’s carefully hidden worries. He hadn’t even been lying! Staying with Alway through the case had been stressful, but fun in its own way. 

And oddly, despite him usually being around more experienced agents, he didn’t think he’d ever felt safer than he did with her by his side. There was no reason for it that he could put his finger on, but her mostly silent and intense presence was a balm to his usual stress, and the way she’d put herself half in front of him- he’d been annoyed afterward, yes. But at the time he just felt...protected. 

Odd indeed. However long she stayed, it was sure to be an interesting time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta is currently busy as hell so these haven't been checked and may be changed in future once he gets to them so please keep that in mind. And don't hesitate to point out any mistakes you see!


	3. The Rural Prophet Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A case in the sticks reveals some new sides to Alway. 
> 
> CW: sex mentions, gun violence, on-screen death, alcohol mentions

Despite his initial worries, Baker genuinely liked Alway. She was blunt and bold in a way that he’d never managed, and not mean with it- well, unless someone was mean first, and then all bets were off. She was smart, but she was smart in different ways to him, and it was nice to not only be able to properly talk about some of his interests with someone but have it be someone who thought differently enough to give him a new perspective on things. 

And she always looked around at the places they went with interest in her eyes. It was like everywhere was new for her- and considering what little he’d heard of her background from the analysts there was a good chance that was true- but she was the opposite of the others when a case took them somewhere they hadn’t been before. They always showed the most interest and curiosity in the bigger cities. In contrast, Alway seemed the most charmed by the rural places they went, looking over the farms and old buildings with something akin to her intensity when on cases. 

As a country boy himself, Baker approved. He also recognized that she was taken with the open spaces and close-knit communities for the same reason he was. The middle of nowhere was a good place for a self-sustaining cult, he supposed, so the nostalgia and relaxation from the familiarity wasn’t much of a surprise. 

Regardless of her private nature and his own awkwardness, he would like to think that they were friends. She’d actually relaxed from her tension at the turbulence when he’d told her the statistics on plane crashes. So it was a bit galling to see her dealing with a situation like _this_ and knowing that he didn’t understand what she was thinking.

It had started the moment that he, Fisher, and Alway had strode through the doors of the small Sheriff’s office and nearly immediately ran into the short, afro-latino woman hovering by the entrance in a bright summer dress. 

“Gracia!” The Sheriff squawked, apparently as taken off guard by her presence as the rest of them, before his face set into a fierce scowl. “I thought I told you-” 

“Is there a problem, Sheriff?” Fisher asked. 

“No, no problem, Miss Gracia here is just a local resident who... has some investment in this case.”

But Gracia wasn’t paying attention, staring at Alway with an odd expression. 

Alway met her eyes and raised an eyebrow, challenging smirk already in place. 

“Need something?” 

Gracia startled at being addressed and started, 

“Ah, well-” 

“ _Gracia_.” The Sheriff said sternly. 

“I was just going to ask if we’d met before, Reggie.” She scowled up at him before looking at Alway again, who had tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. “You seem familiar.” She added apologetically. 

“We definitely haven’t met before.” Alway said, voice steady, doing her best to project nonchalance. It wasn’t really working, but it _was_ making it hard to tell what she was really thinking. And considering her usual bluntness it was surprising and odd to see. “Now why don’t you two stop dancing around the situation so we can actually get on with shit.” 

Well, that was definitely more like her. 

“Miss Gracia here...” He started reluctantly before sighing. “She’s helped us in the past with a couple of small cases. Something stolen here, something lost there.” Baker already had a bad feeling before the Sheriff- he couldn’t bring himself to think of him as Reggie- glanced at the stubborn set of Gracia’s jaw, sighed again, and finished, “She claims to be psychic.”

Baker was a scientist at heart. He read philosophy as well, as any good scientist did, and pondered the possibilities of the unknown. But he was really very certain that psychics and mediums were fake, and wasn’t sure how Alway, a scientist who was much more grounded in the physical sciences than him, would handle such a claim. 

Instead of any of the bombastic responses he imagined, she simply narrowed her eyes again, raising her chin slightly in a way that was subtly antagonistic. Every inch of her was screaming ‘oh yeah? Then prove it’, and Gracia reacted with a frown.

“She has helped with some minor cases in the past but I _told her_ not to get involved with this one.” The Sheriff said hurriedly. “She’ll just be leavin’ now-” 

“It’s fine.” Everyone turned to stare at Alway for the unexpected interruption, arms now crossed and intense gaze on Gracia unwavering under their attention. “I’m a scientist. If she can give me proof that goes beyond cold reading I’ll hear her out for this case.” Her attention finally shifted, regard softening as she glanced at Fisher. “You don’t have to give it any credence though, boss. I’ll only give you hard facts for the profile, promise.”

“This is perhaps not the time to satisfy your curiosity, Alway.” He sighed, glancing at his watch. “You have ten minutes. Sheriff, if we could talk in your office...” He glanced at Baker before he led the pale man away, and he nodded back subtly. It was still agreed upon to not leave Alway alone in police stations, though they’d probably be easing up on her soon with the lack of recent incidents. 

“They have your space set up over there.” Gracia pointed out. Her voice was quiet, but not meek, in a way that reminded him oddly of Alway when she was trying to hide her frustration around people she’d been told to treat well. “It ain’t much but, well, it’s a small place.” 

Alway nodded and strode over towards it, leaving Baker and Gracia to glance at each other skeptically for a moment before following. By the time they caught up she was already in the process of throwing herself into one of the chairs, leaning back and lacing her fingers behind her head as she kicked another one out, locking eyes with Gracia before tilting her head at it. 

Baker watched with a frown at the unusually antagonistic way she was behaving. He knew that Alway wasn’t mean, that she only lashed out when provoked, but there had been no such provocation that he had noticed. 

Gracia had also seemingly picked up on it, eyeing her before sitting cautiously. Alway tracked her movements the whole way before quickly sitting up again and leaning towards her. 

“So? You gonna tell me something I already know about myself or what?” She asked. 

“I can’t just do it on command.” Gracia frowned. “I usually hold people’s hand-” 

“ _That’s_ not happening.” Alway cut her off before visibly taking a breath and forcing herself to relax. Yowch. Gracia couldn’t have touched on a sorer spot if she tried. “It’s skin contact you apparently need?” 

Gracia twitched at the ‘apparently’ but just nodded. 

“Just stick your hand on my face. I don’t bite.” She added with a wide flash of her teeth. A part of Baker idly wondered if this was her idea of flirting; it would certainly fit with the rest of her intimidating presence. 

For obvious reasons Gracia still looked unsure, but then squared her shoulders and reached out, Alway grabbing a gentle hold of her wrist to guide her. Gracia’s eyes slid closed while Alway stayed very still and watched her with an intent curiosity- and then Gracia let out a sharp gasp and yanked her hand back as Alway quickly let go. 

“What was-” Gracia gasped, eyes wide, breaths coming sharp and panicked. “What was that?!” 

“Ah, my good old grandparent, continuing to freak people the fuck out from beyond the pale. Don’t worry, ain’t shit they can do to you.” Alway said, amused. 

“Your _grandparent_?” 

“I said what I said.” Alway replied, cocking her head with a sharp smile. “You wanna stop?” 

At the obvious challenge Gracia set her jaw and shook her hand out before reaching out again with a stubborn glare. Alway’s smile softened, and she hesitated upon wrapping her fingers about Gracia’s wrist before bringing her palm to rest on her cheek again. It took only a few moments for her to pull back sharply again. Alway let her, but held onto her wrist. 

“I don’t understand!” She cried. She looked a little dizzy, actually. Alway was eyeing her with some concern as well. 

“I think your heart is going crazy.” She said. 

“It doesn’t matter-” 

“Uh, yeah, it does.” Alway said, like she was an idiot. 

“But I don’t understand!” She sounded almost desperate now. “I don’t understand what I saw.”

“You don’t need to.” Alway declared. “Not if it’s gonna make you this fucking sick. Let it go. Seeking out the truth isn’t worth your health.”

“That’s just it. You do not just seek out the truth, you see it. You _know_ it.” 

Alway flinched minutely before her mask of nonchalance was back in place. 

“No such thing as knowing the truth.” She said flippantly, pulling her hand away. “That’s _my_ piece of cryptic advice for you.” Then she stood. “Come on, you look pale. Let’s get you some air.” 

Gracia looked at her then just nodded silently, slowly getting to her feet. Alway watched her, eyes sharp, hands uncharacteristically remaining out of her pockets. Baker didn’t blame her; Gracia looked _awful_. It wouldn’t be a surprise if she fell. 

He wasn’t sure exactly what she thought she’d seen or hadn’t seen, if the symptoms she was displaying were entirely fabricated by some delusion or if it was a result of her anxiety, but it didn’t really matter. It was clearly real for her, and the effect was obvious. 

After a couple of minutes he decided he should bring them some coffee. The wind had been fierce and cold when they arrived and he was sure it wasn’t much better now that the sun was setting. Station coffee might be shit, but it was warm.

Fisher caught him on the way out and asked him to send Alway back in. 

“Right away.” He nodded, continuing towards the entrance. 

“...saw that you didn’t want to say in there and that made you feel so sick?” He heard Alway’s voice and noticed that the door was cracked open. They must have been sheltering from the buffeting wind by sticking close to the entranceway. 

There was the audible click of Garcia swallowing heavily. 

“What she did to your hands...” She started, then trailed off again. Maybe due to her own emotion or in some way that Alway reacted, he couldn’t tell. 

“You shouldn’t look at that.” Always replied after a slight pause, voice level. Too level. “If you can see that well, little prophet, we’re going to need you sane.” 

“How did you know my maiden name was Prophet?” She sounded startled, and Alway let out a humorless chuckle. 

“Lucky guess.” 

Baker decided it was a good idea to make his presence known before they caught him listening and loudly opened the door, holding the coffees out to the two women who took them gratefully. 

“Fisher is waiting for you.” 

“Okay.” Alway said, turning to Gracia. “You feeling better?” 

“Yes.” She answered, not meeting her eyes. “Thank you.” 

“No problem. Come back when you feel better.” She said briskly, and turned and swept past Baker inside. Gracia watched after her for a moment, still looking pale, then made eye contact with him and looked away at the car park again. 

He frowned, but frankly he didn’t have the time to figure out what was going on there. There was an Unsub to catch and stop. 

* * *

In all honesty, they didn’t actually see much of Gracia after that. They were focused on tracing the movements of the victims before they were taken and trying to track down any witnesses. If Gracia returned, it wasn’t with any fanfare and he certainly didn’t notice. 

Montaya, Lewis, and Rizzo briefly returned to the station to fill them in on what they’d learned from talking to the locals so far and every piece of information helped Baker recalculate the Unsub’s comfort zone. 

It wasn’t until they’d left again that a middle-aged woman came in, herding her son in front of her. 

“The officers said that you were looking for people who’d seen them girls before they went missing?” She said. “This is my boy Johnny, he said he saw Michelle Winters the night she disappeared.” 

“Oh.” Baker said, surprised. Alway didn’t even seem to have noticed them, lost in some calculations about the times of death. “Give us just a minute and we’ll have him seen to a room. Do you want some coffee?” 

“I’m fine, thanks.” She smiled at him wanly. “I really oughta get back to work, I just came to make sure Johnny actually came in. I can pick him up in a coupla hours.”

“I’m sure we’ll be done by then.” He reassured her. “Johnny, come with me quickly?”

The young man- Baker hazarded a guess that he was around 16 or 17- pulled a bit of a face but silently followed him into an interrogation room, accepted the offer of a glass of water, and was left to his own devices as Baker found Fisher and filled him in. 

“Alway, come in with me but stay quiet.” Fisher decided after a moment’s thought.

She jerked her head up from her papers and stared at him. 

“Uh, boss, you’ve never let me in an interrogation before.” 

“Which is why I want you to stay quiet. You look somewhat like the victim that he’s here to talk to us about so your presence should ensure more truthful answers out of him if he’s unnerved.” 

She grimaced, clearly unhappy at such a tactic, but reluctantly followed him into the interrogation room. 

“John Barker?” He asked as he sat in the chair opposite the teen boy. 

“That’s me.” He agreed, shifting in his seat. “Just call me Johnny.” 

“Johnny.” Fisher nodded. “I’m Special Supervisory Agent Fisher, and this is Special Agent Alway.” He gestured vaguely at where he could see her in his peripheral vision, and on the other side of the glass Baker smiled slightly at the casual way she was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, one foot pressed flat against the bricks. She looked more like the one that was being interrogated than someone doing the interrogating. “Please tell us what you remember.” 

“Well, it was, uh, about ten at night? I was driving down the strip- uh, that’s what we call the main road with everything on- and I saw Michelle at the beginning of it, where the car park is. She was alone and she looked cold, I mean, she was all dressed up for a party or something. I heard there was meant to be one at Mikey’s, he lives near there, but it must’ve got broken up.” He explained. The stutters were normal for someone trying to remember details, but he also kept glancing at Alway and then returning his attention to Fisher. 

“So you saw her at the car park?” Fisher said when his attention had drifted to Alway’s unwavering stare for long enough to be obvious to anyone, let alone trained agents. 

“Oh, uh, yeah.” He jumped a little as he snapped his eyes back to Fisher. His hands were fidgeting under the table. “I offered her a lift but she said no, that someone she knew was coming to pick her up. Seemed like a lie but I didn’t want to seem creepy, what with the murders before that, so I let it be.” 

Alway huffed loudly, apparently having reached her limit. 

“And you left her to walk home alone?” She sneered. 

“I know, okay!” He snapped. “I know it’s a crappy thing to do! You shouldn’t let women walk home alone in the dark...” 

“Fuck that, you shouldn’t let _anyone_ walk alone in the dark.” She cut her hand in front of her chest sharply. “Don’t you know what sort of animals are out and about in places like this? Not to mention the human monsters around!” 

“Alway.” Fisher said, tone warning, and though she obediently settled back and crossed her arms again it was obvious that her anger was still simmering. Johnny kept shooting her wary looks and Fisher immediately capitalized on it. “Johnny, if there’s anything else you know now is the time to tell us.” 

He hesitated, opened his mouth- then shut it again with a shake of his head, leaning back in the chair. 

“That’s it. I’m sorry.” 

“Very well.” Fisher stood up with a glance at Alway. “Give us just a minute.”

“He’s holding back.” Alway declared the moment they were out of there. 

“I agree, but I’m not sure how to make him tell us everything.” 

“There can’t be many reasons that someone would come forward as a witness and then hold back.” Baker mused. “He clearly feels some level of guilt about what happened so why not tell us everything? Would it incriminate him somehow?” 

Now he was the one that Alway was staring at, that one like she couldn’t believe she was going to have to explain something. 

“You know, lots of people are just reluctant to talk to law enforcement.” She said slowly. 

“I know.” He frowned. 

“No, I don’t think you do.” She rolled her eyes. “Sensible people and good people too. Why would they? You let facts get in the way of the truth, or at least your version of it.” She turned to Fisher, who had been watching with quiet interest and slight disapproval. “Can I speak to him for a minute, boss?” 

“I’ll give you two.” He said after a long moment of thought, leaning over to open the door. 

Alway strode through without a glance at him, threw herself down in the interviewer’s chair, and stared at Johnny as he paled a little. 

“So my boss thought that having me in here might reveal a little something about how you feel about Michelle’s disappearance, since I look a bit like her.” She said bluntly, and Baker winced a little as Fisher sucked a breath in through his teeth. “He thinks you looked a little guilty but I’m of the mind that it was more like nausea so why don’t I give a shot at your story, hmm? You offered Michelle a lift but she didn’t refuse, she accepted. You wanted to have sex with her, maybe something milder like making out, but she didn’t so you felt rejected and angry and you threw her out again.” 

“See how he reacted?” Baker frowned, but he wasn’t the only one to pick up on it. 

“Ah.” Alway went, sounding smug, “A gulp like that, avoiding eye contact, it’s not very subtle. Fear response.” 

“So what?” He asked quietly. “Am I in trouble?” 

“Oh, there’s no law against what you did. It’s not like you forced her or anything.” Alway responded, and now her voice was cold and firm. “But you essentially traded her safety for your petty emotions and that’s a shitty thing to do. It could be _seen_ as trying to force her and it probably seemed like it from her side. The important thing is, you know it was a shitty thing to do and that’s why you didn’t tell us.” She laced her fingers together on the table and leaned forward. “But it probably means that the last place you saw her wasn’t where you said. So where was it?” 

“Pa- It was past the general store.” He trembled as he spoke. “I glanced back in the mirror as I was driving away and she was just...staring after my car.” His hand half rose in the air before pressing against the lower half of his face. His eyes were getting shiny; from this angle, they couldn’t see Alway’s reaction. “Hugging her elbows. I left her there, agent. I left her. It was my fault that guy took her.” 

“Well.” She said as she stood. “You learnt your lesson, though it was Michelle who paid the price for it.” 

“That’s not fair.” He whispered, eyes on the table. 

“Lessons like this never are.” She replied, voice level, not looking back as she made for the door and he started to cry. Once outside she let her anger bleed through, making her words clipped and just on the right side of respectful. “Send someone in for a statement once he’s calmed down, maybe we’ll get more information out of him.” 

“Good job, Alway.” Fisher praised, though he was watching her carefully. 

“Yeah.” She huffed, then frowned as her phone pinged in her pocket. “I, uh. Boss, I need some air.” 

“Of course. Take five.” He said gently, and she didn’t even pause to bristle at the tone like she usually would have done before nodding sharply at him and making for the entrance. “Baker, adjust your comfort zone, we were nearly half a mile out.” He continued, making him wrench his attention away from watching Alway and give him a hurried nod. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she’s fine.” He added, back to his more gentle tone of voice. 

“Of course.” He said quickly, and made for the board. Fisher was right. In a town this small especially, a half-mile made a big difference for a comfort zone. 

It took twenty minutes for her to return, still looking a little disgruntled. 

“You all right?” He asked her quietly, not looking directly at her. 

“I don’t like making guilty people hate themselves even more.” She said sourly. “And I got told off for upsetting him.” 

“By Fisher?” He frowned. Their superior might have something to say about her tactics, but Baker would have thought he’d have waited until they were back at Quantico and she was less emotional. 

“No, Gracia.” 

Baker paused and looked at her more fully. 

“How did she know?” 

“I sure as hell didn’t tell her, if that’s what you’re asking.” She grumbled. “You figure anything out?” 

“There’s an officer doing a cognitive interview with Johnny Boyle right now so we’ll see if we get any more details out of him, but what we have is already useful.” He said, standing and spinning the board around to better face her as she leaned back with a thoughtful cant of her head. “See, I thought there was something off with the comfort zone we had and I was right, the new information from Johnny makes a lot more sense.” 

“That’s definitely tighter.” She noted. “Is there anywhere of particular interest?” 

“Well, very little of this is residential, this is essentially the high street of the village and the surroundings.” 

“Family grocers, hardware shops, diner, odd and ends?” Her lips quirked in amusement and he shot her a brief grin. 

“Exactly. The usual in this kinda place.” 

“So if they’re not hunting from their house then the next most likely is a workplace.” She mused, standing up and coming closer. “But somewhere like this, if you don’t work on the farms you probably work on this strip.” 

“Well, yes.” He admitted. “But this actually does help because of the _timing_ of the kidnappings.” 

“...Places close early in the country.” She realized. “So which stay open late enough that the killer could be hunting after they close up?” 

“None of them have websites so the techs can’t exactly look it up. But,” He grinned, “Small place, everyone knows everyone else’s business, so the officers could answer my question just as easily. Don’t tell them I said that.” He added as an aside. 

“I don’t wanna be swarmed by the jump squad when they’re sad.” She snorted. “Your secret is safe with me.” 

“So the three that are still open or close within the hour of the kidnappings are the diner, the bar, and the liquor store.” 

“Wow, really living it up around here.” She muttered. 

“Floyd is currently cross-referencing employees against our current profile, hopefully we’ll get a match.” “Ah.” She smiled slightly and stretched her arms languidly above her head as she wandered back to her seat. “Bless that man.” “You just like him cos he’s the calmest of them all.” 

“Guilty as charged.” She grinned as she threw herself into the chair and laced her fingers behind her head. “Now all we do is wait.” 

* * *

It took three hours, but they had their suspect. The owner of the liquor store, recently divorced, who fit all the other parts of their profile. The store was still open and they knew that if they wanted to prevent another kidnapping and murder they had to arrest him before the place shut for the night. 

As usual Alway was staying outside, keeping watch, but she stopped Fisher before they went in. 

“Hey. Places like this usually have a shotgun. Watch your head when you go in.” 

There was an unusual amount of anxiety showing in her face, in her body language. 

“I will.” He promised, meeting Baker’s eyes for a moment before they continued to enter. 

“Joseph Colman!” Baker heard Fisher call as they came in through the back entrance. “FBI!” 

There was a quiet click and something in the both of them reacted with alarm bells as they threw themselves to the floor, the blast of a sawed-off shotgun going overhead and taking a hole out of the swinging door. Then from the direction of the door came a single pistol shot. 

They looked up as Colman dropped and then twisted to see Alway standing in the doorway, holding a standard-issue police revolver. She must have taken one and followed after them nearly immediately, long before the sound of the shotgun. Her gaze was locked on the man and her expression was- sad, and tired. None of the numbness and shock that you usually saw after someone first took a life. 

While they were both staring at her in silence for a couple of seconds there was the pounding of feet before Montaya and Lewis burst into the storeroom and then stopped in their tracks, taking in the scene. Montaya quickly dropped to check if Colman was alive, but from the amount of blood seeping from his chest it was a foregone conclusion. He still looked up and shook his head anyway. 

“...Good shot, Alway.” He said as he stood, holding out a hand to Fisher as Lewis hurried over to Baker. 

She didn’t say anything in response, just dropped the gun and walked back out. 

“Grab Rizzo and get him to check on her.” Fisher ordered breathlessly as he let Montaya help him up. “They get along best.” 

That hurt a little, but he was ultimately right. Rizzo’s natural cheer and sociability were well known for getting through even the grumpiest recluse’s walls and Alway had proven no exception to that rule. 

By the time he got out front he saw that Rizzo was speaking to her already, the Sherif standing a respectful distance away and seemingly trying desperately to not hear their conversation. Alway was staring up at the faint stars in the sky but responding and nodding to what Rizzo was saying, so at least she wasn’t in any extreme emotional distress. 

Once Rizzo seemed satisfied enough and turned his attention to the Sheriff, Baker walked over and leaned near to her against the car she was also leaning against, making sure to keep the distance she usually preferred between them. She kept her head tilted up and her eyes on the sky but cocked her head towards him slightly in acknowledgment. 

“You okay?” He settled for asking. 

“Oh yeah.” She answered, and it didn’t actually sound like a lie. “I mean, I hated doing that, but you and Fisher were in danger.” 

He blinked. 

“We’re trained and experienced agents.” He said, and she finally looked at him just to give him a sardonic look, which was fair considering how much they still kept her away from dangerous parts of the job. “But thank you.” 

“Don’t thank me for that.” She grunted, attention flicking past him. He turned to see the others coming over towards them. 

“You holding up, Alway?” Montaya asked, and she rolled her eyes. 

“Are you all going to ask that? I’m fine. Unhappy it came to that, but fine.” 

“If you say so.” Fisher said with a quelling look at the others, attention shifting as Rizzo and the Sheriff stepped closer. “Ah, Sheriff. Thank you for your assistance.” 

“Shouldn’t I be the one saying to you?” He asked good-naturedly as he held his hand out. Fisher took it with a small smile. “Now, I know you guys are in a rush to get home but with the wind as it is you won’t be able to take off until tomorrow anyway.” He continued amicably as the shake ended. “Wanna come down to the bar with me and my boys, celebrate catching the bastard?” 

“Well hell, you know I’m always up for something like that.” Montaya smiled. “Rizzo, Lewis?”

“Oh, you know it.” Rizzo laughed. 

“Count me in.” Lewis agreed. 

Fisher sighed long-sufferingly, but he was smiling. 

“I’ll have _one_.” He told them. “Baker, Alway?”

“I’ll stick to one too.” Baker agreed. 

“I wanted to talk to Gracia a bit more, actually.” Alway frowned slightly. 

“About what?” Fisher asked politely. 

“About why she’s such a dumbass, mostly.” She answered flippantly. 

“Well, invite her along.” He shrugged as he gestured for the Sheriff to lead the way and everyone started to follow him. “You think there’s merit to what she says?”

“Boss, she told me something about my grandparent that no-one else in this whole fucking country knows.” She said wryly. “And besides, she’s the reason you didn’t get your head taken off with a shotgun.” 

He stopped in his tracks. 

“She told you that?” 

“You can thank her later.” She called over her shoulder, waving briefly at them before tucking her hand back into her pocket. 

“Whose Gracia?” Montaya asked curiously. 

Oh boy. 

* * *

Alway was actually engaging with them and somewhat curtly with the Sheriff and his deputies, but every now and then would turn to Gracia and ask her about a random name. She’d think about it for a moment then offer up some random fact. They had no way of verifying them but Alway seemed to find it entertaining anyway. 

“Hmm.” She said when she was two beers down, a rare glint of mischief in her eyes as she leaned closer to Gracia. “Tell me something about the Sheriff that no-one else knows.” 

“Hey!” The man himself protested as some of his men started to laugh at him. 

“Hmm.” She reached a hand out only to have it swatted away by Alway. Baker suddenly realized that she’d touched Gracia before and it was the only times he’d seen her willingly touch a person. “Ouch!”

“I told you to stop grabbing at people. It’s a crutch. Come on already.” 

Baker stared, and he wasn’t the only one- Fisher and Rizzo had also been close enough to hear the odd comment. Was Alway seriously scolding her over being a better psychic?

“Geez, all right.” Gracia grumbled, closing her eyes for a long moment. Then she went bright red as her eyes snapped open again with a wordless sputter. 

“Ooh, interesting.” Alway smiled, slow and Cheshire-like. 

“I’m not saying that out loud.” Gracia protested. 

“But how will we know if it’s true?” Baker protested. 

Gracia sighed very heavily, then leaned over and whispered into the Sheriff’s ear. It was his turn to go bright red and he coughed heavily and choked out, 

“Yeah, that’s true.” 

“Well, that’s interesting.” Alway cackled. 

“You could know these things because you live in a small town with them.” Fisher pointed out. 

“Yeah, why don’t you pull up something about Agent Alway?” The Sheriff protested. 

“She already knows _three_ of my secrets!” Alway protested. “Do Fisher or Baker!” 

“I volunteer.” Baker said quickly. He wouldn’t make Fisher do something like that. Besides, he was curious about what sort of things Gracia could have said to the skeptical, scientific Alway to make her so easily believe in her apparent abilities. 

Gracia’s hands twitched but she didn’t reach out, just closed her eyes with an expression of intense concentration. The cops couldn’t help their curiosity, going quiet and leaning in as Gracia’s brow crinkled slightly. 

“...You used to be obsessed with...giraffes?” 

Baker felt shock run down his spine and it clearly showed on his face as they all looked to him for confirmation. 

“Aw, giraffes?” Alway smiled. 

“That’s right.” He whispered. “I was interested in them until I was 12.” 

“That’s good.” Alway hummed. “Abbe von Nettesheim?”

Gracia seemed to think about it for a moment before letting out a hiss of pain and pressing the heel of her palm to her forehead. 

“Another family member?” She gritted out. 

“That obvious, huh?” Alway seemed fascinated by the response. 

“It’s your...dad?” 

“Ooh, you’re getting better. But seriously, stop. I don’t want you to...blind your inner eye or something.”

“Is that possible?” Gracia squinted, which seemed an odd question to ask someone that wasn’t psychic, but Alway just shrugged. 

“I dunno. Never met a Prophet that works like you before.”

“Jones.” Fisher corrected. 

“Whatever.” Alway waved it off, focusing on the slightly pale Gracia. “We should stop. Let’s talk about something else.” 

“Like what?” She seemed honestly confused. 

“Like what they do around here for fun! Places like this always have their own weird little traditions.” 

“They’re not _weird_.” 

“They are!” She exclaimed, visibility struggling to hold back a laugh. “People outside always think it’s weird! I’ll start if you want.” When Gracia just stared at her she clapped her hands together, a surprisingly loud sound even with the gloves, and went, “We called it flower day. People would get up before dawn and go on walks with their loved ones. Everyone would pick one flower to put in a vase at home, so every flower represented a member of your family! And then the family would cook a meal passed down in your family line and there would be a feast made of every family’s cooking. Dancing, sometimes.”

“Sounds fun.” Gracia smiled. 

“It was fun!” 

“What did you like?” Baker found himself asking. 

“I always picked the orange flowers. They matched my hair.” She recalled, a little wistfully. “And my mum was a great cook, but the Melkov family made this great dumpling stew.” 

“Well, I guess we have the harvest festival. It’s a little like that.” The Sheriff said. 

“Oh yeah!” Gracia beamed. “We have food stalls and a hay bale maze...” 

The rest of the evening passed with light stories and funny anecdotes, the chill of the wind outside forgotten in the warmth of the packed bar and the booze in their bellies. As they left, Alway actually reaching out to shake Gracia’s hand and waving at the local police, Baker heard her make a comment about calling her if needed before she started to walk after the rest of them towards their temporary hotel. 

“You gave Gracia your number?” He frowned as she fell into step with him. “Why?”

“She has a daughter, did you know that?” Alway asked quietly. “She’s five years old and takes a bit more after her dad than her mum. She showed me pictures.” 

“Okay.” He blinked at the apparent non-sequitur, but then she continued on. 

“How old would you say Gracia is? I’m bad at guessing ages. About 30?” 

He tilted his head as he thought about it. 

“I’d put her at the early thirties, yes.” 

“Hmm.” She stared into the distance for a moment and then glanced down again at her phone. “She’ll probably be dead within the next five years. Ten, if she’s lucky.”

“What?” He stared. 

Her fingers gently closed about her phone as her eyes shut for a moment. 

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” She said, leaving him staring after her as she stalked away. 

For obvious reasons the strange, short conversation lingered in his mind for weeks. And he watched her- they all did- for days and then weeks after that case, waiting for the inevitable breakdown that came after killing for the first time. It hit everyone differently at different times unless you were a true sociopath, but it would always have to be dealt with sooner or later. 

Except Alway didn’t. 

The days passed, then weeks, and everyone slowly realized that they weren’t going to see it. Alway might often be emotionally reticent, but she was certainly no sociopath. 

Baker wasn’t sure how long it took the others to come to the same obvious conclusion, if his own embarrassingly long period of waiting was longer or shorter than the rest, but nobody brought it up with him (or Alway that he knew of) so he didn’t mention it either. 

Alway had killed before. 

That thought haunted him for weeks too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters all ended up...long, but the next one should be much shorter and will be uploaded next Monday. Hopefully I'll be able to stick to an upload schedule of a chapter every Monday.


	4. The Misunderstanding Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The agents learn more about Alway, stick their noses into her business, and get bitten for it. 
> 
> CWs: Serious amatonormativity, more swearing than usual since from Eden's POV, food and alcohol mentions

Months passed and they continued to slowly, indirectly find out things about Alway, because despite rarely speaking about herself she couldn’t stop them finding out things by looking. 

A case with a child witness had them realizing that actually, Alway was good with kids, second only to Montaya with his experience as a father. He’d been clammed up despite all of their efforts, but when Alway had finally been allowed a turn he’d started to open up within the hour. When they left, case closed, she’d ruffled his hair and promised to see him again, and upon some of their teasing questions had made a single mention of a younger brother before going quiet. 

She didn’t say his name, and they all knew better than to ask anything else about him. 

Another case revealed that she was surprisingly good at eking information out of usually tight-lipped prostitutes. She’d gone aside with one as Montaya watched and had returned five minutes later with useful information. He couldn’t understand half of what she said to others in further talks, seemingly speaking their lingo, and she always referred to them as working men or women and treated them exactly the same as she did any other civilian. It wasn’t a high bar, but it was always nice when someone reached it. 

One in Alaska finally put paid to the question of why she dressed like she did, with the answer being ‘the cold’. It was the first and only time they saw her dressed a different way, with a black turtleneck under her coat, actual gloves, and a thick, dark beanie. It was a surprise how changing her underlayer from white to black made the entire outfit look so different, but not as surprising as how much she moaned about the cold and tried to actively avoid doing the street work that she usually enjoyed. 

It wasn’t just on cases. It took them five months of working together before she reluctantly agreed to go for drinks with them after work. She ordered beer and looked around and mostly stayed quiet, and when the karaoke started and Sweet Caroline came on she startled at the sudden, raucous way everyone joined in with the ‘oh oh oh’ of the first chorus. By the time the second came around, she was grinning widely as she boisterously joined in, clearly enjoying the more relaxed atmosphere. 

She enjoyed ramen and Mexican, her preferring on the rarer occasions that they got the authentic stuff in contrast to tex-mex, but not half as much as she eagerly devoured anything Eastern European. They widened the variety of food they got delivered on cases or ate on their days off accordingly. 

Her favorite color was blue but she didn’t like the ocean. She was hopeless with most digital technology but could identify almost all of the parts of a combustion engine. She could quote random modern poetry but seemed to know next to nothing of classical art or poetry and her knowledge of classical literature was mixed.

She was also completely oblivious to the multiple people that had been attracted to her over the course of their cases, though Montaya and Rizzo seemed to be of the opinion that it was willful ignorance for some reason. There was also the issue that, although they were trying not to stereotype, she didn’t exactly dress or act like many straight women. Maybe it was because she was afraid to come out that she wasn’t pursuing a relationship? Careful attempts at prodding for answers had just gotten them blank looks, and a more direct question had gotten the exact answer of ‘Of course I support gay rights? I don’t even understand why this is a question that’s being fought over’ with such confused nonchalance that they couldn’t read much from it. Rizzo, upon hearing about that attempt, had put his face in his hands for a solid five minutes and sighed in deep disappointment before giving them a lecture on leaving people alone. 

They resigned themselves to not understanding it, just like they didn’t understand a lot about her. Except that one day, they thought they got their answer.

* * *

Everyone had their own ways of dealing with cases in the aftermath. Eden preferred to sleep. It wasn’t like she had dreams or nightmares, and she genuinely just enjoyed being able to shut off for a bit. Ray joked, in that particular way that meant that it wasn’t really a joke but he had no other way to talk about it, that she’d wracked up such incredible sleep debt in her teen years that she was probably still paying it off, and he wasn’t exactly wrong. The amount of sleep that she got during cases wasn’t helping much either.

Either way, with a particularly gloomy end to the last case and at least four hours until they were back to base, she wanted to do nothing more than curl up on the sofa at the back of the plane and let herself sink into the darkness. 

Unfortunately for her, Montaya’s coping mechanism was cheerfully teasing his friends and the bitter failure of losing another life had made him even more obnoxious about it. Even worse, he was back on his bullshit about her dating. Apparently it didn’t matter how many times she said she wasn’t interested and that she didn’t care, it had become his favorite thing to prod her about over the past few months. 

God, she just wanted to sleep. 

Normally she could weather it fine. She understood that he was just trying to distract people and was aiming to be helpful, even if she found it more irritating than anything. Besides, she hadn’t been so different when she was younger, hiding behind her loud words and boisterous behavior. 

“So, when are we going to get you a partner, huh?” He asked as he threw himself onto the sofa opposite her and she eyed him like something venomous. “Someone to go home to?” 

Maybe it was because she’d heard it far too many times, maybe it was because he actually sounded more sincere than the teasing tone he’d been using for the others just moments before, maybe it was because the almost pitying way he was looking at her was familiar and grating.

Whatever the reason, it didn’t really matter. What did matter was that she felt the last strand of her infamously short temper snap. And because she was tired and grumpy and so, so done with having to dance around these conversations every goddamn time, what ended up coming out of her mouth was, 

“I don’t think Ray’d like that very much.” 

Everyone stopped. Those who hadn’t been paying much attention turned to stare. 

“Who’s Ray?” Lewis asked at the same time as Fisher went, 

“Your emergency contact?” 

There was a brief pause as the two of them looked at each other and Eden sighed heavily, putting a hand over her eyes. 

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Baker asked, sounding a bit hurt, and she thought that was a bit fucking rich considering how little some of them shared about their own home lives. 

“Yeah, we would have left you alone if we knew.” Montaya said, holding his hands up, and Eden’s brow crinkled. What did Ray’s particular brand of protectiveness have to do with them attempting to find her a date? She hated not understanding something even back home, and here it was only compounded by the hopelessly lost feeling she kept getting that could only be described as culture shock. 

“I didn’t think it mattered who I lived with.” She replied, feeling her lips twist into a scowl as she crossed her arms. “What is this, an interrogation?” 

“We’re just surprised is all.” Rizzo offered with a smile that was probably meant to be mollifying. “You didn’t let anything slip about it at all.” 

“Is he why you didn’t need help when you moved here?” Baker asked curiously, only to recoil slightly from the glare Eden sent his way. 

“Ever since then?” Lewis realized, doing a poor job of hiding her hurt and, hell, what was their problem anyway? “Why didn’t you want us to know?” 

“Is it because he’s so much older than you?” Fisher asked, and her scowl lightened slightly with her confusion as she cut her eyes across at him again. 

“Huh?” She went. 

“Wait, how much older?” Lewis sat up, sounding and looking almost alarmed for some reason. Did they think Ray was too old to be looking after her or something? She was an adult, for fuck’s sake, she could look after herself. She’d been doing it long before she even met Ray, which was in turn long before she was an adult. 

“Twelve years.” She said sourly, watching almost every expression change to the serious and concerned ones when they were dealing with victims and their families, and that right there just pissed her off. She had no idea what the hell their problem was but if they weren’t gonna be obvious about it she wasn’t going to deal with it. She’d had enough of that shit in her teenhood.

“Eden-” Montaya started, in the same voice he used when trying to convince children that they were safe and could talk to him about what they’d been through, and she wasn’t dealing with that voice directed at _her_. 

“No.” She said, only realizing after the unnatural stillness had fallen over the compartment that they’d never heard that tone of voice from her, ice-cold and dangerous. The sort of edge to it that she’d used when defending Crow or innocents, or when facing off against thaumaturges who thought they could play at being a god without consequences. Many of the people they tracked down here made her want to beat them to a pulp, but at the end of the day none of them could reach the level of the atrocities she’d seen before and the hatred she’d felt for them, and it was why they’d never heard it from her. “We’re not doing this.” 

She could practically _feel_ them exchanging looks over her head and fought the urge to visibly snarl. She didn’t need this weird shit. Not after such a hard case. 

Not so close to the anniversary of the terrible event that had eventually ended with her there, on that plane, after that case. Not with her still a little rattled from her run-in with a prophet who worked so differently from what she was used to and didn’t know who had claimed her. Not when her arms and wrists were aching, aching, from the rain in a way that meant she was only going to be hurting more tomorrow.

Either way it did the trick and nobody spoke to her until they landed and were splitting off their separate ways into the night. 

“Alway.” She froze at Fisher’s authoritative voice behind her and clenched her hands tighter around the strap of her bag, glaring into the darkness ahead and feeling her nails catch against her gloves at the movement. She was going to have to reline them again, it seemed. “You understand that we are always here for you if you need it.” 

She glanced over her shoulder to scowl at him. 

“I’m fine. Stop sticking your noses into my private life already. It’s condescending.” 

“That is not our intention-” He frowned, only to be cut off. 

“Yeah, well that’s how it feels to me.” She said flatly. “See you tomorrow, boss.” 

A part of her that sounded suspiciously like Ray was worrying about the potential problems that could arise from speaking like that to her superior. Another, more familiar part that sounded like Crow was fretting about the rudeness of all things. 

But the loudest, biggest part that was all herself was much too frustrated and done to care. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter but hopefully made up for by the hints of Lore. Eden Alway, miscommunication extraordinaire. Though she'd argue it's not her fault.


	5. The Missing Agent Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the midst of an otherwise quite ordinary case, Alway goes missing. 
> 
> CWs: Kidnapping, misogyny, blood mentions, romance mentions, food mentions

They’re tracking an Unsub who likes them pretty and young and feisty and tortures them for days when it happens. Alway goes to collect coffee from the place just three minutes away and never comes back. 

It made sense, was the worst thing. The Unsub was a typical woman-hater, and specifically targeted those he thought acted unfeminine, women exactly like Alway with her swearing and attitude and entire job. Fisher should have seen it coming but he hadn’t, had let her go off on her own, and the worst had happened. He was going to be chastising himself for it for months to come, he knew.

Everyone goes into overdrive, because they have time in a way that is both relief and horror but not an upper limit on how much because the guy’s been escalating. And nabbing a federal agent so close to the police station is definitely an escalation. He has to know the problems it will cause and it’s all really useful information to add to the profile but the cost is that Alway is _gone_. 

When it hits twelve hours and they have no definitive answers, Fisher knows he has to call Ashling. He doesn’t like the man- none of them do- but he would have called for any of his other agents so he has to call now. 

As the phone rang and rang he began to worry that he wouldn’t even pick up, and then-

“Hello?” Ashling said cautiously. His voice wasn’t as Fisher had expected it, though honestly he wasn’t quite sure _what_ he’d been expecting. His accent was less neutral but more confusing than Alway’s, and his voice was smooth. Though Fisher didn’t know what he looked like, he imagined that he was the sort to often go around with a smirk on his face. “Ray Ashling speaking.” 

“Mr Ashling, it’s Agent Fisher.” He said. 

There was a sharp inhale and then a pause. 

“...What happened to Eden?” Ashling asked, voice admirably steady. 

“I’m afraid she’s missing. We believe the Unsub has her-” 

“Just missing?” Ashling cut him off, sounding oddly relieved. “Not dead or injured?” 

Fisher frowned and pulled the phone away from his ear on instinct to stare at it, not quite able to understand what he was hearing. 

“...Yes.” He settled on, seeing some of the others glance over at his odd behavior, not able to hear what he was. “I’m afraid this particular Unsub likes to draw things out. She will almost certainly be fine.” 

“Yeah.” Ashling said, now sounding amused of all things. “Word to the wise, Agent Fisher: your Unsub doesn’t have Edie, she has him. Poor soul. How long has she been missing?” 

“12 hours now.” He answered automatically, the rest of his brain trying to process the completely bizarre turn the conversation had taken. 

“Hmm, he must be somewhere remote for her to not have reappeared already.” Ashling mused. “Well, no mind. If he hasn’t rang you yet she’s probably dragging his unconscious body back to you already. I’d give it another hour at most before she appears. He’s probably not smart enough to realise he brought his doom into his home. Get her to give me a call once she finds you, okay?” 

“Mr Ashling, I’m not sure you grasp the seriousness of the situation.” He gritted out. 

“Oh, I do.” He replied, and Fisher blinked at the sudden, dark severity in his voice. “Another word of advice, agent. Edie is horribly, recklessly self-reliant and that means she’s very good at getting herself back out of trouble, and she’ll probably be awfully grumpy about the whole affair too. Remember to get her to give me that call, Agent.” And before Fisher could muster a response, he heard the dial-tone in his ear. 

He pulled the phone away again to stare at in consternation. 

“Everything all right?” Lewis asked as she and Montaya, the only other agents still in the station right then, came over to him. 

“He seems to think that Alway is perfectly fine and is going to stroll back here with the Unsub in tow.” He relayed, watching their eyebrows raise and trying to keep his own incredulous irritation out of his voice at the sheer casual way that Ashling had reacted to his young girlfriend being kidnapped for 12 hours. 

“That was it?” Lewis’s brow furrowed. 

“Oh, and that she’ll be grumpy about it.” He added, which caused an amused twitch of the lips of both of them. 

“So business as usual for her, then?” Montaya snorted. 

“Indeed.” He allowed the brief amusement for a moment before getting back to business. “So, did the techs have anything for you?” 

“Nothing much new.” He grimaced. “There seems to be some information-”

They were cut off by Fisher’s phone ringing, and he lifted it up and answered again without even checking the number. 

“Fisher.” He barely managed to get out before Rizzo was yelling down the line. 

“The chopper has spotted Alway less than a mile from the road! We’re heading to intercept now! She seems to be carrying someone with her?” 

* * *

When Alway emerged from the forest, following a pale local officer, she was sun-pinkened and dirty, dried blood stark down the side of her face, and undeniably grumpy. There was also a tied-up man in a seemingly effortless fireman’s carry over her shoulder, half-conscious and unceremoniously dropped to the tarmac of the road. 

“Sorry, boss.” Was the first thing she said, batting away the hand of an EMT who was trying to look at her head. “Leave it, it’s stopped bleeding. He got the drop on me while I was glancing at my phone.” 

“Nothing to apologize for at all.” Fisher assured, because he was the unit chief after all. “We’re all just glad you’re okay.” 

“Sure.” She shrugged with a snort. “Cuffs weren’t exactly hard to break. It wasn’t like he had the chance to even try anything once I woke up. Blood’s gonna be a pain in the ass to get out of my hair, though.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder as she continued, “I can show you the way to his little murder cabin. It’s about six miles and most of it through forest, but I don’t know how to drive and just walked in a straight line here. Must be an easier way to get to it, considering his car was outside.” 

“You don’t know how to drive?” Montaya gaped, because that seemed like a huge skill gap to have gone unnoticed so far. She just gave him an unimpressed look and turned her attention to Baker when he spoke. 

“Do you think if we found a map of the land you could point out where it was?” 

She tilted her head, pressing her lips together as her eyes narrowed in thought before nodding. A map was quickly produced from a ranger, Alway’s lips moving soundlessly with calculations as she peered at it and dragged her finger across the paper before pulling her pen out of her pocket and circling a small section. Had the Unsub not searched her at all? From the sounds of things he might not have really gotten the chance.

“Somewhere around there.” She said, and Fisher immediately handed it off to the locals with an order to secure the scene. Alway watched it with a slight frown and then snapped her attention back to him when he said her name. 

“Alway, you’re sure you’re all right?”

“Right as rain, boss.” She said, eyebrows raised. “I liked these clothes though. Such a pain. I’ve got dry dirt and pine needles _everywhere_.”

“Right.” He said weakly. If the head trauma had caused a concussion then she clearly didn’t have it anymore and he didn’t see any of the usual signs that a person was lying. Still, she seemed remarkably unconcerned for someone who had been missing for over twelve hours. Mostly irritated, as if at a minor annoyance and not a major life event. Which reminded him. “Uh. Ashling wanted you to give him a call when you got the chance.” 

“Oh, no, you told him?” She groaned. “He’s gonna be such a jackass about it. My phone is probably in a ditch somewhere cos of this arsehole, can I borrow yours?” 

“Of course.” He said, holding it out. “He was very sure we didn’t need to go looking for you.” He added, just to see how she reacted. 

She snorted. Of course, why did he expect a normal response to such nonchalance over her safety? 

“Nice to know _he_ trusts me to handle myself.” She snarked as she typed the number in, putting it to her ear before any of them could reply. They could tell that Ashling had picked up nearly immediately by the crooked grin that spread across her face. “Hey, geezer, were you worried about me?” She listened for a moment then tilted her head and grinned wider. “Aw, yeah, just got blasted dirt in places it shouldn’t be and way too much blood in my hair. Hmm? No, just cos it’s sticky.” Another pause before she rolled her eyes. “For fucks sake, don’t reference memes when I’ve been kidnapped, boss probably thinks you're a soulless harpy now. It’s not funny. Ray, stop laughing.” She huffed. “I’m gonna have to get a new phone, probably. Yeah, I’m sure he’ll keep you updated... Okay. See you soon. Love you.” 

If she noticed their collective grimaces as she hung up then she pretended not to notice. 

“Okay, I need a shower, meal, and bed. In that order.” She declared, tossing the phone back to him. 

“That we can do.” His lips quirked up without his explicit permission but it did no harm to embrace the levity. 

“No way in hell we’re leaving you alone though.” Montaya added. 

“Aw, c’mon, the guy’s in custody!” She groaned theatrically, pausing before adding sheepishly, “And maybe concussed.”

“Damn girl, how hard did you hit him?” Rizzo whistled. 

“It doesn’t actually take much force to cause a concussion.” Baker pointed out. 

“Alway.” Fisher interrupted before their adrenaline-crash-fueled conversation could devolve any further. “It’s more for our peace of mind than for your safety.” 

She looked at him for a long moment before sighing and shrugging, making him blink in mild surprise. That was more exasperation than annoyance, more resigned than willing to fight. Not how she was usually. 

“If you gotta.” She agreed. “But no-one’s coming into the bathroom with me.” 

“Fine by me.” Rizzo snorted. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” 

“God, yes.” She breathed, the last of the tension going out of her as she was herded towards one of their cars. 

The pattern continued in her room- she grumbled and whined but didn’t actually try to throw them out. Considering how genuinely unbothered she seemed by her experience Fisher had his suspicions that it was more for their sake than hers but didn’t voice it, content with what she was allowing. 

When she was out of their sight in the bathroom the tension in the room visibly ratcheted up, but she was out within 20 minutes dressed in a loose men’s t-shirt, pajama shorts, and a soft dressing gown, visible skin pinkened from the scrubbing she’d put it through and in the middle of dragging a tangle-teaser through her wet hair with muttered curses. The gloves remained on. 

It was easily the most casual and least guarded they’d ever seen her and it hit Fisher like a punch to the chest that no matter how angry she’d been at them before, this was a clear sign of trust that he wouldn’t have hoped to get this soon from the surly, guarded woman in his office all those months ago. 

“Y’know,” She started as she flopped down facefirst on her bed, “I should have known this case would end up going so bad. It was crap from the start.”

“You’re not wrong.” Lewis snorted. 

“You did the right thing with the Chief.” Fisher commented, thinking about the multiple times he’d called her Miss Alway instead of Agent. The first time she’d just corrected him on how to say her name: ‘Al-whey, not always without the S’ as she often put it. The second time she’d more tensely corrected him on the Agent. The third time, she’d called him an idiot and walked right out of the station. 

Fisher and the others had more than backed her up, furious at the disrespect. Alway didn’t usually give a damn about her title, still preferring to just go by her name and balking at attempts to call her ‘Doctor’, but she clearly recognized the discrepancy in how he referred to her versus how he was referring to Fisher and Rizzo for the insult that it was. That tension, even after he started reluctantly calling her Agent, had been part of the reason that Alway had been sent for the coffees, to get her away from the hostility for a bit. 

“Yeah, but the profile was off because we thought he was after hikers, but he just took the women hiking at first because it was less risky.” She grumbled before sharply sitting up. “Whatever, we succeeded-”

“However unconventionally.” Rizzo put in with a grin. 

“Yes, yes.” She waved it off with a huff. “What’s for dinner?” 

They ordered room service and spent the rest of the evening sprawled around her room, eating and drinking and just casually hanging out, basking in the relief of getting her back safely. She put her foot down at around ten, visibly flagging and outright refusing to let anyone sleep in the room with her. It had long been one of her only demands when out on cases and it was the first time anyone felt really uncomfortable with it but they couldn’t exactly refuse. 

Besides, she’d made it very clear that she was capable of taking care of herself. 

The next morning she was up- well, not really bright and early but certainly her version of it- looking amused as she assured them all that she’d survived the night. It was nice to see her back in something like her usual appearance, even if her dirty coat had been reluctantly packed away and replaced with a somewhat surreal-looking college hoodie with a large front pocket that her hands were tucked in. 

They hurried through breakfast and the last of the paperwork, and to little surprise Alway passed out again on the plane, curled up in her usual way. Once certain she was asleep he told them in detail about the conversation with Ashling and watched their reactions. Montaya and Lewis both still seemed annoyed, but Baker looked thoughtful and Rizzo reluctantly amused. 

“Alway _is_ right, you know.” He pointed out. “‘They don’t have him, he has you’ is a meme, even if it was kinda an inappropriate time to use it.” 

“She didn’t seem annoyed or upset by his conduct.” Baker commented. “Actually she seemed pleased by his lack of concern. I’m not sure if it’s the healthiest way for her to feel but she seems fine with the dynamic.” 

“Well I texted to let him know when we’ll land. Hopefully he’ll come to pick her up, but since none of us have seen him do that before I doubt it.” Fisher sighed. 

“Wait. If she can’t drive and he doesn’t pick her up, how does she get home? She doesn’t live close enough to walk back, does she?” Montaya frowned. 

“Guys.” Lewis interrupted sternly. “Don’t pry. You know she hates that. All we can do is ask her questions and wait until she wants to answer them.” 

To prove her point she woke Alway up when they were nearly back to base and asked how she got home. Alway tilted her head at the question, clearly aware that there was more to it, but didn’t call her out. 

“Sometimes I call Ray to get me, but mostly I take the shuttle bus and walk from there. It’s only a mile or so. I like the exercise.” 

“And today?” Montaya asked, getting a much more piercing look. 

“It’s the middle of the day. I’m walking.” She said in a tone that brooked no argument. No-one tried. 

* * *

She looked much less tired when she came in the next day and Fisher felt little remorse about keeping her in his office for an extra five minutes when she dropped the first of her reports off. 

“What is it, boss?” She asked. 

“I think that we would like to meet Ray.” He said simply. 

Her nose wrinkled up and her mouth pressed itself into a flat line as she eyed him skeptically. 

“Why? I like to keep my personal and work life separate, actually.” 

“We don’t actually do that much here.” Fisher told her. “The loved ones of agents often also need the support network. We all know Rizzo’s husband, Montaya’s wife and kids, my niece, Lewis’s sisters, Baker’s mom.”

“But _I_ haven’t met them.” She pointed out snidely, and he blinked because yes, that was actually true. She had joined them in fall and since they mostly did things together in the spring or summer, by the time she had started to agree to come out with them it was winter and they met rarely and only with the actual team members. When she’d politely begged off of their big holiday bash none of them had wanted to push so she hadn’t met their people there either. 

“That’s fair.” He agreed with a nod. “There’s actually something we’re planning in a couple of weeks where everyone will be there to watch the baseball game. You can meet them there if you want.” 

Alway looked at him for a long moment and he tried to keep his face neutral, to hide whatever she was looking for. 

“Sure.” She agreed grudgingly. “But Ray isn’t coming, I want to meet them by myself.” Then she tilted her head and added, “And I don’t trust you lot to not be weird. I’ll ask him, though. Can I go?” 

He agreed, and watched her thoughtfully as she shut the door behind herself. It seemed pretty clear that Alway didn’t want her team meeting Ashling, no matter what. 

Apparently Ashling hadn’t agreed with her, because she came into work the next day looking quite annoyed and cornered Fisher alone at the first opportunity. 

“So if I go to this thing to meet all of your people we’re fine to have you come round for dinner one day.” She said sourly. 

“Montaya has offered to do a BBQ next month, considering the weather is meant to be nice this summer.” Fisher told her. “You could both come to that.” 

Something flashed across Alway’s face that almost reminded him of nausea, a brief grimace coupled with a swallow that wiped the expression back off. 

“Thanks but no thanks.” She denied curtly. “I know you’re trying to be kind and everything but that tends to be a no-go. Look, I’ll just have food delivered or something, it’s fine.” 

Fisher had the suspicion that she’d rather have the meeting take place on her home turf, or at least would prefer the annoyance of them being around her house to the added stress of being outside their environment. 

“We could do potluck.” He offered, and this flash of an expression was definitely bafflement. 

“What?” She asked. 

“It’s when everyone brings something with them so that the burden isn’t all on the host.” 

“Sure. Fine.” She said shortly. “We’ll hammer the details out after I go to this other thing with you all.” 

“The baseball game.” He reminded her. 

“Yeah, whatever. Gotta do paperwork.” She said, and turned her back on him as she walked away. He couldn’t help but feel like after that fateful, if short, conversation on the plane, something in her relationship with all of them had irrevocably broken and this was the result. She was still opening up to them, but now she was suspicious about their intentions with every interaction that broke new ground. 

It was a real shame, but he felt that it was necessary. Hopefully, in time, she would understand that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has ended up being posted at an uncomfortable time, considering what's going on in my country right now in regards to women's safety


End file.
